


Insidious

by pandoras_chaos



Series: Recovery [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anger, Angst, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, F/M, M/M, Masturbation, Missing Scene, Oral Sex, Pining, Sexual Tension, Some Het, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandoras_chaos/pseuds/pandoras_chaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s too much between them; too many unspoken emotions, too many missed opportunities, too many words left unsaid for too long and John feels like he’s suffocating. They’ve left this to fester, unacknowledged and forgotten, swept beneath layers of stubborn stoicism and blatant refusal, and now it is a malignant thing, all-consuming and nearly violent in its vehemence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insidious

**Author's Note:**

> ABSURD amount of thanks to [JC Porter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jcporter1/pseuds/jcporter1), thesmallhobbit, and [Petite Curiosity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/petitecuriosity/pseuds/petitecuriosity) for holding my hand and talking me through this one. It's been _ages_ in the making and would not have happened at all if it weren't for these lovely folks. Seriously.  
>  Thanks also to the brilliant [Ariane DeVere (aka Callie Sullivan)](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/), without whom I would never make it through all the dialogue.
> 
> Warning for a few heterosexual love scenes, although the gritty stuff is all Johnlock. For the record, I remain personally undecided about Mary's character, and because of the timeline of this particular story, she is shown in a pleasant light. If that squicks you out, wait for parts two and three of the series and we'll chat then.
> 
> Title and lyrics borrowed from the song "Smiling at Strangers on Trains" by Frank Turner (originally Million Dead)

**Insidious**

 

: :  
 _It was the strangest thing today,  
I found footprints in abandoned pathways  
Beneath forgotten undergrowth, something stirring again_  
: :

  
John sits on the train, listless and bored along with the rest of the passengers. He feels the familiar tug of _him_ against the very edge of his consciousness: that feeling of being scrutinized, constantly watched and dissected by a mind far greater than his own. John looks around surreptitiously, but sees nobody of note. It’s been far too long for the relentless feeling of disappointment to bother him much. Sherlock is dead—has been for nearly two years now, and John ignores the small twinge in his chest with long-practiced ease.  
  
He sinks into the comfort of ritual, changing to the District line and watching for Fulham Broadway, his body already anticipating the way the train will curve and sway when it gets nearer the station. He shifts on his seat, the box in his pocket turning and digging unexpectedly into his thigh. John winces and drops his hand down into his pocket to turn the little corners, the small spark of pain intensifying for a second before it eases, leaving behind only a lingering ache. He fingers the soft velvet briefly, already anticipating the look of happiness on Mary’s face when she sees the three-stone setting. It’s exactly what she’s been hinting at for months now, and one does not live with Sherlock Holmes for as long as John had without picking up a bit of deductive skill.  
  
John feels his breath catch at the thought and tugs his hand free, the familiar wash of shame dousing through him like cold water. He should be able to have a single conversation—hell, even a single _thought_ —without bringing Sherlock into everything. He huffs in frustration and stands when the train slows, moving his way past the bustle of Londoners busy with ongoing life. He walks slowly towards the graveyard, enjoying the way the crisp autumn air brushes across his face after the stifling stillness of the tube. It’s actually been nearly three months since he’s visited, and part of him feels guilty for taking so long. The other part of him—the little voice in the back of his brain that sounds a lot like Ella—congratulates him on moving on.   
  
Moving on. What an absurd thought, as though it was just a simple romantic break up or insignificant bump on the long line of his life. John sighs and tries not to think of the word “devastation.” It had been unnaturally hard for him; far more difficult than losing a simple friend should have been. John’s lost people before, watched as comrades had been blown to bits in front of his very face, yet nothing in his significantly colorful past could have prepared him for the utter _loss_ of watching Sherlock step off the side of St. Bartholomew's hospital with nothing more than a simple _goodbye, John_.   
  
He had loved Sherlock—really _loved_ him, in more than a simply friendly way. It had taken a very long time for him to admit that his feelings for Sherlock were more than platonic, but by the time he’d finally grown accustomed to the idea that he could feel that way about a man, Sherlock was long dead and buried. It still hurts, but John has become so used to the feeling of desolation that it has almost become a kind of sick comfort.   
  
Sherlock’s headstone is bleak as ever: shiny and black, the simple lines clean and tailored, much like the man himself. John smiles a little at it comes into view, noting his own reflection in the shiny onyx. He looks better than he has in ages; Mary’s cooking filling him back out, the bushy facial hair making him look like a completely different man.   
  
“Afternoon,” he says to the grave, the small tension he’d been holding in his shoulders seeming to ease for the first time in weeks. He knows it is completely foolish to stand here speaking to a dead man, but it somehow helps in a way he’s not been able to explain to anyone. Ella had said it was healthy and Mary had looked at him with such understanding he’d stopped resisting the urge and finally swallowed his pride, allowing the words to flow freely as though Sherlock were actually there to hear him.   
  
“Sorry it’s been so long,” he continues, fidgeting a little in absurd contrition. He realizes what he’s doing immediately and smiles ruefully at the headstone. “Not that you’d have noticed anyway. You’d probably still be talking to me even after I moved into Mary’s flat.” He shakes his head and pulls the box out of his pocket, opening the lid and staring at the shiny diamonds glinting merrily in the weak sunlight.   
  
“I’m asking her to marry me,” he says softly, barely holding back the instinct to turn the box towards the grave and show the ring off to nobody. He crouches down and studies the gold band. “I love her, you know,” he says, his voice quiet and low. “She’s been nothing but good for me.” John shifts a little in the soft earth and stands again, putting the box back into his pocket and patting it gently into place.   
  
“You would have liked her, I think. She’s lovely and funny and clever, although not as clever as you, of course.” He smiles at the stone, his mind superimposing Sherlock’s scoffing smirk onto the cold surface. He feels his heart clench tightly in his chest for a brief moment before he sighs and feels his shoulders slump.   
  
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the wedding,” he continues softly. “Mary will insist on a church do, and I’m happy enough with that, but,” John pauses, a lump forming inexplicably in his throat, “The best man…” he trails off again, feeling as his throat constricts around the words. He takes a deep, steadying breath and lets it out slowly before continuing: “I’d have liked you to be there.”  
  
He stays for twenty more minutes, talking about nothing of consequence and enjoying the feeling of the cool air on his skin. It’s peaceful here, and John tries valiantly to ignore the wrenching ache in his chest as he pats the stone gently and turns to leave, knowing somehow that it will be a very long time before he visits again.

 

: :  
 _Makes me long for the fresh air of a familiar face  
And not the violence of loneliness, nor the unease of surrounded seclusion_  
: :

  
Mary is stunningly beautiful tonight: her hair pinned up in whimsical curls, the light purple of her dress highlighting her coloring in flattering brushstrokes and making her cheeks blush pink with pleasure. John feels his heart swell with affection as she smiles coyly at him from beneath her lashes. She takes his proffered elbow with a trill of girlish laughter, bumping her shoulder against his as they walk down the pavement towards the waiting taxi.  
  
“My gallant soldier,” she says melodramatically with a cheeky wink and John feels his own face split into a conspiratorial grin.  
  
“Well, I have to act the part,” he whispers, intentionally trailing his lips across her ear and feeling his grin turn slightly predatory at her involuntary shiver of arousal. “After all, nobody would expect a beautiful woman like you to be out with a beast like me.”  
  
“I hope you’ll be a beast later,” she murmurs, low and seductive, turning her head and capturing his lips in a kiss laced with heat and promise.  
  
“Why do you think I’m wearing this poncy tie?” he counters with a smirk, skimming his fingers up the inside of her thigh and revelling in the silky texture of her dress.  
  
“Mmm,” she hums, nipping at his jaw and resting her hand over his, “Hopefully so I can tie your wrists to the bedpost later.” John growls a little at the image, but the cabbie clears his throat meaningfully and John feels the taxi roll to a stop.  
  
He is suddenly filled with a flood of nerves, the box in his pocket seeming to burn a hole right through his trousers and into his very bones. He feels his face flush and reaches for his wallet, paying the driver with a nod of thanks and hoisting himself out on slightly shaking knees. He reaches back and offers Mary his hand, her keen gaze drinking in his obvious unease with a quirk of an elegant eyebrow. John clears his throat and tries an easy smile, knowing he’s probably too stiff, but she graciously lets his uncharacteristically nervous behavior slide, taking his hand and allowing herself to be swept into the posh restaurant with a dazzling grin.  
  
They are seated quickly, the maître-d’ nodding at John in discreet understanding as he gives his name for the reservation. John stares at the menu with mild trepidation. He had researched ahead of time; knows the prices are astronomical, but knowing what to expect still doesn’t fully prepare him for the complicated names and overly dramatized descriptions of what is essentially steak and potatoes.  
  
Mary snorts at her own menu across the table and their eyes meet with mutual bemusement. She bites her bottom lip in a clear move to stifle her incredulous laughter and John feels the tension in his chest ease a bit. This is nothing to be nervous about; it’s just him and Mary, spending the evening dining at a ridiculously posh restaurant, both of them failing to fit in with the caliber of people who usually frequent this type of establishment. She’s so uncomplicated and wonderful and John smiles back at her with love and affection brimming in his heart.  
  
“John, what are we doing here?” Mary whispers, still trying to repress her giggles behind her menu and shooting a furtive glance towards the waiter, who is already pouring a bottle of wine into their glassware.  
  
“Seeing how the other half lives,” John murmurs back with a grin. She loses the battle and bursts out laughing, earning a few stern glances from the tables surrounding them, but she smothers it quickly enough behind her napkin, eyes sparkling, and John finds her so beautiful he can hardly breathe.  
  
“Well,” she finally says many minutes later, cheeks flushed with suppressed mirth. “I’m off to the ladies.” He stands as she pushes her chair back, earning another of her glittering smiles and she presses a kiss to his temple as she passes. “Order another bottle, yeah?”  
  
John sits back down and fidgets with the menu, staring at the impossibly complicated names of vintages and provinces he’s never heard of. He fiddles with the box in his pocket for a moment before glancing over and seeing that Mary has indeed disappeared to the first floor. He heaves a deep breath and pulls the box out, opening the lid and staring at the ring inside. The nerves are back, and with them a heavy sense of hesitation.  
  
It really hasn’t been long that they’ve known each other; just nine months, six of which they’ve been dating. This is a big step for both of them, and John can’t help but wonder if he’s rushing things. That being said, neither of them is getting any younger, and Mary had mentioned wanting children in her life. If he’s honest, John’s never really thought about kids, but now that the offer is there, he finds himself strangely warming to the idea. He’s half convinced he’ll be a crap dad, but Mary is strong and solid enough to pick up whatever slack John unintentionally leaves in a child’s life. She’ll be a wonderful mother, he thinks, and the thought makes him smile wistfully again.  
  
He could spend the rest of his life like this: easy laughter and uncomplicated companionship, cheap Chinese and crap telly, delightfully kinky sex and simple affection. A small part of John wonders where the thrill is in such normality, but he tamps that part of him down firmly. He lost that outlet to his life when his best friend jumped off a fucking building in front of him, and John is not willing to sacrifice any more of his life to chasing after pipe dreams.  
  
He stares blankly back down at the menu, trying to remember if wine from France is meant to taste better than wine from Italy when someone bumps unceremoniously into the back of his chair. He is jolted into awareness, but a quick glance over his shoulder shows nothing more than a skinny, bespectacled waiter with a no doubt overly inflated sense of superiority.  
  
“Can I help you with anything, sir?” the waiter says in the worst French accent John has ever heard. He tries hard not to roll his eyes and stares back down at the menu, wondering if Mary will suspect if he orders champagne.  
  
He decides it doesn’t matter and asks: “Hi yeah. I’m looking for a bottle of champagne – a good one.”  
  
The waiter leans closer, and John catches a whiff of a long-forgotten scent, his throat inexplicably tight for one breathless moment before he forcibly removes his thoughts from that direction. Sherlock has no place in his life anymore, and John has to fight back the sinking feeling in his chest at the thought. He is interrupted from his maudlin introspection by the waiter's atrocious accent: “Mmm! Well, these are all excellent vintages.”  
  
John can feel exasperation begin to outweigh his willingness to listen to this waiter’s overactive ego and he clenches his jaw tightly. “Er, it’s not really my area. What do you suggest?”  
  
“Well, you cannot possibly go wrong, but, erm, if you’d like my personal recommendation, this last one on the list is a favorite of mine.”  
  
John nods his acceptance and tries to ignore the twinge of pain in his leg. This is utterly ridiculous; one tiny little scent of overpriced aftershave and he’s acting as though Sherlock just fell in front of him all over again. John stifles the instinct to run, keeping his face deliberately blank as he clamps firmly down on the wave of grief trying to swallow him. He should be well past this, and even though this kind of reaction has been less frequent of late, the fact that it’s still happening at all is beyond irritating.  The waiter is still talking, and John pulls his attention back to the present.  
  
“It is – you might, in fact, say – like a face from the past.”  
  
John regulates his breathing and focuses on the ring box on the table, thinking of Mary and the grounding effect she always has. He takes a deep breath, “Great. I’ll have that one, please.”  
  
“It is familiar, but, with the quality of _surprise!_ ”  
  
John clenches his jaw and downs the remainder of his wine, trying to summon patience from his deepest reserves. The fact that he hasn’t been this annoyed since Sherlock is not helping matters. “Well, er, surprise me,” he finally says, thrusting the wine menu into the waiter’s hand with what he hopes is an air of finality. The man seems to hesitate for a moment before mumbling something incoherent and wandering off.  
  
“Sorry that took so long.” Mary is back with a flirtatious smile and a wave of lavender and honey scented air. John snatches the box off the table and takes a deep breath, letting her steady presence calm him. He basks in her perfume, firmly eradicating any lingering aroma of Sherlock’s preferred aftershave. It seems like a distant memory now and he smiles back at her through the haze of anticipation and fear. His nerves have returned with vigor, and John hastily takes a swallow of water, trying to remember the words he’d sketched out earlier this afternoon.  
  
“You okay?” Mary asks, her eyebrows scrunching together in concern. John swallows around the lump in his throat and forces himself to respond.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Me? Fine. I am _fine._ ”  
  
Mary gives him a searching look before smiling sweetly at him, her entire face full of nothing but fond affection and John wipes his sweaty palms against his trouser legs under the table. John huffs a laugh at the absurdity of the situation and gazes back at her, pushing his jangling nerves down to the recesses of his mind and focusing on her overwhelming beauty.  
  
Mary stares back at him with that cheeky quirk to her lips and seems to come to some sort of decision. She straightens in her chair and pins him with a knowing look. “Now then, what did you want to ask me?”  
  
In spite of his efforts, John feels the tide of nervous jitters take sudden residence somewhere in his abdomen. It’s not that he’s worried she’ll say no; it’s more that he’s worried he’s making the wrong decision in asking. He firmly ignores his subconscious’ insistent nudges telling him that he’s already committed his life to someone else, that nobody will ever take Sherlock’s place in his heart. Sherlock is _dead_ , and no amount of wishing will ever bring him back. It’s well past time for John to move on. The persistent ache in his chest seems to double, but he swallows back the tide of unwelcome emotion and reaches for the only crutch he’s allowed himself: “More wine?”  
  
“No, I’m good with water, thanks.” Mary smiles at him again, her face so warm and open and John feels an unaccountable swell of guilt begin at the base of his spine. She is far too good for him and he wonders what on earth he’s doing.  
  
“Right,” he chokes.  
  
“So…”  
  
John clears his throat and tries: “Er, so ... Mary. Listen, erm ... I know it hasn’t been long ... I mean, I know we haven’t known each other for a long time…” He can feel his cheeks prickling with a mortifying flush and tries to clear his throat again around the huge obstruction that seems to have wedged itself between his vocal chords.  
  
Mary smiles at him encouragingly. “Go on.”  
  
John feels a hot wave of irritation, his strained nerves already at a critical breaking point, but he swallows it back, knowing it has nothing to do with Mary and everything to do with his dead best friend. “Yes, I will.” He smiles tightly and tries again: “As you know, these last couple of years haven’t been easy for me; and meeting you…” he trails off, thinking of the terrible state in which she’d found him that one fateful day: in a humiliating, sodden heap outside the clinic as his bad leg had finally given out under the strain of grief and phantom pain. “Yeah, meeting you has been the best thing that could have possibly happened.”  
  
“I agree.”  
  
John blinks at her. “What?”  
  
Mary smiles at him, all bold confidence and fond humor. “I agree I’m the best thing that could have happened to you.”  
  
John lets loose an incredulous laugh, buoyed up by her sheer cheek. She scrunches her face up endearingly into something like apology and John feels a throb of unmitigated affection for her.  
  
“Sorry,” she says with a self-deprecating shrug.  
  
John shakes his head, wondering how it’s possible for his heart to pull in two completely different directions at once. “Well, no. That’s, um…” He clears his throat again and looks at her: beautiful and strong and so wonderfully _alive_ , and his chest feels like it’s expanding beneath his ribs. “So-- if you’ll have me, Mary, could you see your way…” His words stall out as trepidation seizes his throat. She giggles graciously and waits for him to continue, though it’s clear she knows precisely where he’s going with this. The thought eases his nerves a little. “If you could see your way to--”  
  
There’s a bustle of activity and suddenly the annoying waiter is back, brandishing a bottle of champagne and interrupting John mid-sentence. “Sir, I think you’ll find this vintage exceptionally to your liking.”  
  
John glances at him: incredulous and enraged and he feels his heart rate spike dangerously.  The waiter ignores the obvious discomfort and continues: “It has all the qualities of the old, with some of the colour of the new.”  
  
John shakes his head and tries to wave him away, locking his eyes on Mary, who is doing her best to keep her laughter in check. “No, sorry, not now, please.”  
  
“Like a gaze from a crowd of strangers,” the waiter continues, as though John hasn’t spoken and John can feel his jaw tense in anger. Mary just lifts her hand to hide her face and bites her lip with obvious amusement. “Suddenly one is aware of staring into the face of an old friend…”  
  
John hears something impossibly familiar in the waiter’s voice and rage erupts in his brain-- annoyance and anger and pitiful grief suddenly warring for dominance. He grits histeeth and bites out: “No, look, seriously. Could you just—”  
  
John finally turns to face the intrusive waiter, fully intending to rip into him like a stroppy new recruit, but he feels his heart stutter to a complete stop before suddenly galloping forward with alarming speed. What he sees in front of him cannot possibly be reality. He feels a jolt rock through his frame and he blinks hard, trying to dislodge the image of Sherlock overlaid over the waiter’s face; Sherlock’s features heart-wrenchingly familiar behind the obscure and completely ridiculous, _painted-on_ mustache. John tries to breathe. It doesn’t work.  
  
“Interesting thing, a tuxedo,” the ghost rumbles, Sherlock’s velvet-smooth voice rolling over him with all the ease of a long-forgotten dream. John feels it like a physical caress, that voice wrapping around his scarred heart and enfolding it like a balm. “Lends distinction to friends, and anonymity to waiters.”  
  
John’s vision begins to blur around the edges and he’s vaguely aware of his own halting breath, his own trembling hands. He wants to reach out and _touch,_ to confirm that Sherlock is _here_ and _real_ , to demand answers and to listen to that smooth dark chocolate voice again, but he cannot hear anything beyond the cacophony of his own pulse. Recognizing signs of a panic attack, John turns to Mary, trying to ground himself in a reality that is shattering apart before his eyes. She’s looking at him with open horror; concern, inquisitiveness and fear tinging her beautiful blue eyes, and John finds himself stumbling to his feet.  
  
“John?” Mary’s voice cuts through the cloud of confusion and he tries desperately to hold onto it; to hold on to _her_. John swallows hard and attempts to focus, feeling his spine straighten as his military background begins to take over: his own body’s defense mechanisms snapping firmly into place. He glances back towards the anomaly beside him and feels his heart clench painfully in his chest. Sherlock’s hand reaches towards him and John recoils on instinct, struggling to breathe around the tension in his lungs.  
  
“John, what is it? What?” Mary, sounding uncharacteristically frantic. John cannot, _cannot_ look at her now. He stares down at the table, willing his head to clear, for any of this to make any sense at all.  
  
“Well, short version,” Sherlock begins a bit awkwardly, and John’s head whips around to stare at him. “Not... dead.”  
  
John’s lungs fail, his heavy exhale seeming to drain the life out of him in one thudding heartbeat. The reality of the situation seems to be seeping into the cracks of his consciousness, bitter and abrasive and he feels rage rise up the back of his throat; hot and damning and acidic. The initial shock is fading rapidly into a sick sense of betrayal, and John’s arms begin to shake from the effort of not simply lashing out and tearing into Sherlock with all the resentment and spite and ugly, horrifying anger.  
  
Sherlock blinks at him with something that looks suspiciously like hesitation and John bites back a whoop of hysterical laughter, his own manic emotions spiralling dangerously out of control.  
  
“Bit mean, springing it on you like that, I know,” Sherlock mumbles, his usual surety seeming to stall out as he clearly realizes the situation is monumentally _not good_. “Could have given you a heart attack, probably still will. But in my defense, it was very funny.” Sherlock’s face breaks into an infuriating smirk and he laughs a bit nervously at his own antics, and John sees red.  
  
“Okay, it’s not a great defense,” Sherlock mumbles again, his face collapsing into something resembling contrition, and John feels the ground shift beneath his feet; reality finally slamming into him and rocking his entire _world_ on its axis.  
  
Mary gasps, her hands flying to her mouth and John glances over at her, his own shock momentarily overridden with concern for her. “Oh no! You’re—” Mary’s eyes are wide with shock and she darts her gaze back to John, understanding breaking over her face like an oncoming storm.  
  
“Oh yes,” Sherlock says, dismissive as ever and John’s blood _boils_.  
  
“Oh, my God,” Mary breathes.  
  
“Not quite,” Sherlock cuts in.  
  
“You died. You jumped off a roof,” Mary bites out, and John feels a swell of affection for her amid the confusion in his head.  
  
“No,” Sherlock says, and it’s so final that John almost laughs.  
  
“You’re _dead_!” Mary shrieks, and John is vaguely aware of the scene they’re causing; of other patrons’ curious glances and judgmental stares. It only adds fuel to his ire.  
  
“No. I’m quite sure. I checked. Excuse me.” Sherlock has the audacity to pluck a napkin from the table and dip the corner into Mary’s water glass, smearing the wet cloth across his upper lip and wiping away the evidence of his absurd disguise.  
  
“Does, er, does yours rub off, too?” Sherlock says with a maddening quirk to his lips and John feels his own face contort into something completely inhuman; his anger melting his features and leaving behind something ugly and terrifying. He can feel his body begin to sink into that dangerous place at the back of his mind: the area he reserves for sand-swept landscapes and memories of the deepest trauma.  
  
“Oh my god, oh my _god_.” Mary’s face is like thunder. “Do you have _any_ idea what you’ve done to him?”  
  
Sherlock looks down and fidgets, and John is seized again by an incredible sense of unreality. “Okay, John, I’m suddenly realizing I probably owe you some sort of an apology.”  
  
Something snaps and John’s rage breaks. He slams his balled fists into the table with a deafening finality, the concussion of sound seeming to wash over the entire restaurant as every single noise drops instantly into echoing, damning silence.  
  
“All right, just—John? Just keep—” Mary tries nervously, but John is _done_.  
  
“Two years,” John grits out. He tries to breathe, but every inhale slices through his lungs like shattered glass. He clenches his jaw against the wave of nausea that threatens to overtake him. “Two _years_.”  
  
Pain laces through his body; hot and sharp and achingly raw. Sherlock is staring at him with startling clarity, and John feels every muscle clench against the brush of intrusive observation. He can feel every single second of every fucking _day_ of Sherlock’s abandonment stretch across his features like a bloody map, and he just _knows_ Sherlock is reading him like an open fucking book.  
  
“I thought,” he whispers, his breath seeping out on a anguished groan and he can feel the mortifying smear of tears begin to brim up around his eyes. “I thought you were dead.” The words are meaningless and absurd, and Sherlock just blinks at him slowly and John can feel his mind recoil as malice begins to slowly seep into grief. “Hmm?”  
  
Sherlock is starting to look mildly alarmed, and John can feel his anger taking over. _Sherlock_ has no right to be alarmed. Not now. Not after this. Not after the sheer magnitude of _bullshit_ he’s put John through.  
  
“Now, you let me grieve, hmm? How could you do that? _How?_ ” He can feel his fury building and Sherlock takes a miniscule step back-- barely more than a lean, but it’s enough to trigger John’s fight-or-flight response and he feels his adrenaline spike dangerously. His face darkens and he bares his teeth in a snarl of wounded rage.  
  
“Wait – before you do anything that you might regret,” Sherlock says, holding his hands up in a placatory gesture that does nothing but anger John further.  
  
“Erm, one question. Just let me ask one question.” Sherlock’s face is open and hesitant, and for a split second John sees the man beneath the bravado; all of his defenses stripped bare to reveal a layer of crushing vulnerability. John pauses, waiting, his teeth gritted as he physically holds himself tethered to normality.  
  
Sherlock’s face breaks into an infuriating smirk and he gestures blindly towards his own upper lip. “Are you really gonna keep that?”  
  
Mary huffs out an incredulous, humorless laugh and John completely loses it. His restraint breaks and he hauls himself towards Sherlock, feeling gravity tilt as his momentum carries them both to the ground with a bone-tingling crash. John can barely see through the thick haze of blood-hot rage clouding his vision and his hands wrap tightly around Sherlock’s throat, feeling the unmistakable and erratic beat of his heart against his fingers.  
  
It is this above all else that finally breaks through the haze of uncertainty and blackest rage, and John allows himself to acknowledge that Sherlock is actually _here_ , sprawled beneath him against the cold and unforgiving floor of this overpriced restaurant; whole and warm and unquestionably alive. Sherlock’s hands come up to grip his wrists and John allows his fingers to slacken a little, watching in sick fascination as Sherlock’s elegant white neck flushes with blood where John’s grip has pressed fingerprint bruises into the skin. John battles with anger and heat and hot, hard anguish for one single moment; his brain racing ahead of his own actions and it feels like time simply slows to an indeterminable crawl.  
  
He can see the waitstaff and Mary dive forward to interfere out of his peripheral vision, is vaguely aware of other patrons as they rise from their chairs in collective surprise and sycophantic curiosity, knows intrinsically that there are voices raised in alarm surrounding them, but Sherlock’s eyes blink open and he focuses on John with such intensity, John feels like he’s falling; sinking into that clear blue gaze.  
  
John feels Sherlock’s thumb caress delicately along the back of his hand, and just like that all of his senses are honed solely on the feel of Sherlock beneath him, John’s heavy weight pressing him down into the unyielding surface of the floor. He feels as Sherlock arches slightly, pliant and receptive and John is hit with a sudden wave of arousal so hard his head spins. Sherlock’s lips part on a sigh and his mouth curves slightly at the edges, his eyes going heavy lidded for a split second before that gorgeous voice purrs, “ _John_.”  
  
And then there are hands clasping harshly around his shoulders, yanking him up and away and John is hauled backwards into bewildering madness, the seemingly endless chaos of the restaurant fading into a persistent buzz of background noise, but Sherlock’s gaze is still locked on his; a warm, dark curl of arousal still coiling tightly behind his irises and John feels his face flush into a hot, damning scarlet. Someone steps forward and reaches down to help Sherlock to his feet and time seems to be coming in fits and starts: one moment John is surrounded by chatter, Mary’s face swimming dizzyingly in front of him as her small, warm hands close around his jaw, tilting his face forwards and saying something he can’t hear. The next moment they are being forcibly ejected from the restaurant with a glower and a grunted threat disguised as an overly polite suggestion that _Sir and Madam might consider finding another venue for their future gatherings._  
  
John blinks his eyes and finds himself seated at a grubby, Formica-topped table in a hole-in-the-wall cafe, Mary leaning hard against the back of her own chair while they both stare at the impossible man across the insurmountable space before them. It feels all wrong—John’s befuddled mind stalling over the idea that he and Mary are pitted so obviously against Sherlock, when it had always seemed the opposite: Sherlock and John against the rest of the world. Sherlock’s gaze flicks towards Mary for a split second and John feels a swell of protective instinct rise up in his chest. He leans forward and Sherlock’s eyes catch at the movement, his focus shifting back towards John with a single slow blink. John can feel the tension in his chest ease a bit as Sherlock’s attention is no longer scrutinizing Mary, and he spares a moment to wonder at his own fucked up life.  
  
Sherlock fidgets with a scratch in the tabletop for a moment, his gaze averted before he clears his throat and straightens, his eyes unerringly snaring John’s own as he leans forward. John knows exactly what’s coming, can see it unfolding between them like a dream: Sherlock’s magnificent mind revving up into ‘deduction mode’ as he takes a breath and begins to speak.  
  
God, was he always this fucking _arrogant_? John wonders briefly what exactly it was he thought he’d been missing for these past two years as he watches Sherlock flounce about with barely a breath between words. He seems completely off in a way John can’t remember ever seeing before. It’s almost as if the Sherlock he had known has disappeared somewhere into the ether without a wisp left of what used to be the man John fell in love with. John almost wishes he’d stayed dead, and then visibly winces as his brain recoils from the thought.  
  
Mary is watching him with wide, understanding eyes. There’s a curious tilt to her mouth that John cannot fathom at the moment; almost as if she finds the whole situation _amusing_ somehow. It grates against is already flayed nerves, and he can feel his tenuous control slipping violently again into blinding rage. Sherlock seems unable to focus, which in itself is odd behavior for certain. He keeps darting his eyes to John and then flitting them away quickly as soon as he realizes John is still glaring at him. It leaves a strange taste on the back of John’s tongue, as though the very air is tainted with deception and fury.  
  
John has had enough. “You know, for a genius you can be remarkably thick,” he interrupts before Sherlock can get a good head of steam going. Sherlock’s words die abruptly and he seems to snap out of some kind of trance. He blinks at John for a moment.  
  
“What?” Sherlock says, his brow furrowing in rare confusion.  
  
“I don’t care how you faked it, Sherlock,” John finally grits out after it appears Sherlock is not going to stop making unwanted excuses. John can feel the tide of hurt and ire threatening to drown him, and pushes his words out with frustrated breath. “I want to know _why_.”  
  
Sherlock blinks at him blankly for a few precious seconds, his expression of mild surprise underlayed with a thick layer of hesitation and worry, and John is all the more furious because of it. This version of his supposed best friend is not what he remembers at all. The romanticized memories John’s been clinging to are suddenly being ripped apart and dissected, and John is not entirely comfortable with the implications they’re leaving behind.  
  
“Why? Because Moriarty had to be stopped,” Sherlock says as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. John feels the darkened expression stretch across his own features and he takes morbid pleasure in the fact that Sherlock visibly starts, his brow furrowing in unfamiliar confusion for a brief moment before his features clear and he seems to realize what it is John’s so angry about. “Oh. Why, as in…”  
  
John’s jaw clenches again and he reminds himself to breathe. Sherlock is beginning to look slightly uncomfortable and John feels a black sort of satisfaction at keeping Sherlock so uncharacteristically wrong-footed.  
  
“I see,” Sherlock says slowly. “Yes. _Why_. That’s a little more difficult to explain.”  
  
“I’ve got all night.”  
  
Sherlock clears his throat again and drops his eyes back to the table for a moment; a rare show of submission that has John simultaneously crowing with triumph and hesitantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.  
  
“Actually, that was mostly Mycroft’s idea.”  
  
John’s teeth are going to be ground into fine powder by the end of this evening. “Oh, so it’s your _brother’s_ plan?”  
  
“Oh, he would have needed a confidant,” Mary says reasonably, and John’s head whips around to glare at her instead, unable to keep the hurt betrayal off his face. She recoils slightly and looks contrite as she mutters, “Sorry.”  
  
John takes a deep breath and turns back towards his lying best friend, willing the explanation to be a good one as he says: “But he was the only one? The only one who knew?”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes close and his expression shifts into something almost painful, and John suddenly knows deep down in his bones that something fragile between them has been shattered irrevocably.  
  
“Couple of others,” Sherlock forces out, wincing visibly as the incriminating words tumble from his lips. His eyes flutter open and pins John with a pleading stare. “It was a very elaborate plan-- it _had_ to be. The next of the thirteen possibilities--”  
  
“Who else?” John grinds out, every bone in his body feeling brittle and fragile as his muscles flex with tension. “Who else knew?” Sherlock hesitates and John can feel his gut clenching, a cold, sick feeling sinking deep into the base of his abdomen. “ _Who_?” he demands.  
  
“Molly,” Sherlock blurts and John’s brain seems to short circuit.  
  
“Molly?” John repeats, all the noise in the cafe seeming to fade out as his mind throbs around the name; his thoughts springing back to every encounter he’d ever seen between the two of them. Poor Molly Hooper, constantly chasing after Sherlock’s attentions and getting positively nowhere. John had always pitied her and her fruitless infatuation, but now he feels a thick wave of jealousy swell like a balloon in his gut.  
  
“Molly Hooper,” Sherlock confirms and his face twists into an apologetic grimace. “And _some_ of my homeless network,” he says tentatively and then continues quickly: “And that’s all.”  
  
John feels fury like nothing he’s ever experienced before. So basically _everyone_ had known except him. The deception tastes harsh and acrid on the back of his tongue, and he struggles blindly for something to ground him.  
  
“Okay,” John says, trying to keep the sarcasm from swallowing his intentions, but losing spectacularly. “Okay. So just your brother, and Molly Hooper, and a hundred tramps.”  
  
“No!” Sherlock laughs, and the sound is so unexpected that John feels his heart clench painfully in his chest. “Twenty-five at most.”  
  
Something animalistic and primal rears up in John’s chest; hot anger and jealous spite mix caustically with unbearable grief and utter bewilderment and John is drowning. He lets loose a pained growl and launches himself forward, gripping Sherlock’s lapels again and slamming him bodily to the floor. Mary shouts something inarticulate and then John is on top of Sherlock again, his fists flying as he lashes out towards any bit of Sherlock he can reach. He realizes belatedly that Sherlock is not fighting back, taking every punch and scratch with an air of determined submission and the flare of righteous anger stutters beneath John’s ribs.  
  
“Fight back you son of a bitch,” John grunts, pressing his hand beneath Sherlock’s jaw and tilting his head back, exposing the long line of Sherlock’s throat and John is hit again with an overwhelming sense of heady power. Sherlock blinks heavily up at him, breath harsh and panting and his tongue traces along the line of his thick lower lip. John realizes he’s frozen, staring at the glisten of saliva on Sherlock’s mouth and he feels heat shiver up his spine; incendiary and all-consuming, and John is lost. Somewhere in the back of his mind alarm bells are clanging, warning him that his wires are getting crossed somehow; that anger and adrenaline are morphing dangerously into arousal and want, but John _needs_ this.  
  
Sherlock sucks in a breath and stares up at him, his eyes an unfathomable sea of reflected yearning, and it’s so _unfair_ , John feels something snap. He straightens up, straddling Sherlock’s slim hips and holding him pinned with one hand as his left fist comes crashing down, feeling his knuckles grind painfully against Sherlock’s teeth; that gloriously plump lower lip yielding and splitting, stains of dark crimson seeping up around pale flesh and John feels _incandescent._  


: :  
 _As far as Mongolia, as close as my clothes  
Your presence pervading, but it still never shows_  
: :

  
The taxi slows to a stop, but John’s mind is still racing. His entire world has been turned upside down and backwards and how is the rest of existence just continuing on as though nothing has changed? Mary clears her throat with a knowing smile and reaches over him to open the door, giving him a playful shove and reaching for her own handbag to pay the driver. John stumbles onto the pavement, his knees inexplicably weak for a second before he rights himself and moves towards the door. He unlocks Mary’s block of flats with a huff and holds the door open for her to move past him.  
  
“Well, that went well,” Mary says once the sitting room door closes behind them. She’s looking at him with sympathetic eyes and a hesitant smile. He just stares at her, unable to articulate around the flood of emotions in his chest. She sighs and comes towards him, bracketing her small hands around his jaw and drawing him forward into a light kiss. He leans into it, wanting nothing more than to lose himself in the heat and smell of her, in the familiar warmth and comfort he has found only lives within her arms, but she pulls away gently, keeping the kiss chaste and soft.  
  
“I’m sorry,” John mumbles, eyes closed around the deep well of guilt threatening to swallow him whole.  
  
Mary huffs out a small laugh and kisses him again. “What on earth have you to be sorry for?” John just blinks his eyes open and gazes into her beautiful, understanding face. She tuts again and smoothes her hands down his neck to rest with sturdy, solid weight on his shoulders. “He’s back,” she says softly, her smile encouraging and hopeful. “That’s a _good thing_ , John.”  
  
She searches his face for a minute before sighing again. “It’s perfectly understandable for you to be angry.” John snorts, but she ignores him. “But it’s also perfectly alright for you to be happy,” she whispers softly.  
  
John just holds her tighter, feeling her delicate bones beneath his palms as he slides his hands around her slim waist. “I love you,” he murmurs against her lips.  
  
She grins and kisses him back for a moment, allowing his tongue to swipe against hers once before pulling away. “I know,” she says. “But you also love him, and that’s _fine_.”  
  
John feels his stomach drop; a cold, hard sensation of panic flooding through his lungs for one terrifying heartbeat. His eyes open wide and he stares into her steady gaze, understanding and affection shining across her face in graceful, sweeping lines. She smiles at him again and kisses the end of his nose before squeezing her hands on his shoulders and easing herself away.  
  
“Now then,” she says decisively, as though she hasn’t just blown all of John’s carefully constructed defenses to bits. “Pajamas and ice cream?” She cocks an eyebrow at him and John feels his chest gradually thaw, the icy band around his lungs easing as his breathing begins to even out. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” she tosses over her shoulder with a small grin. John watches her go with an incredible sense of relief.  
  
He’s not sure how long he stands there, frozen in the hallway as the stress of the day seems to leave him entirely drained. He forces himself to breathe normally until he can physically feel the tension in his shoulders ease. Despite the adrenaline and the fury and the outrage and the general disbelief, Mary is right: there is a small, tentative flare of hope that feels disconcertingly like _happiness_ rising from his heart. John takes a deep breath and stumbles through the hall to the bedroom, loosening his tie as he goes.  
  
Mary’s dress is flung over the corner of the bed, an elegant swathe of femininity across the comfortable practicality of the knit blanket. John shrugs out of his stiff jacket, but catches it before it falls to the bed, feeling as the hard weight of the ring box knocks against his elbow. Horrified embarrassment floods through him as he realizes in all the commotion of Sherlock’s ill-timed return, he’d completely forgotten about his proposal. Anger flares up again and John grits his teeth, knowing intrinsically that Sherlock could not possibly have known about John’s intentions tonight when he’d chosen today of all days to reveal his absurd deception, but it’s just so like him that John feels bitter amusement cloud his vision for a second.  
  
Well, this is one relationship Sherlock does not get to ruin.  
  
Mary looks startled when he shoulders open the bathroom door, her face covered with a thick layer of cream as she scrubs the makeup out of her eyes. She’s wearing an old, stretched out tee shirt and a pair of threadbare knit trousers that are perched precariously on her hips, but she looks so beautiful John thinks he might just explode with love for her. She smiles back at him, taking in his rolled sleeves, his tie laying in contrasting strips against the open collar of his shirt, and John feels utterly ridiculous, but he drops to one knee, ignoring the slight squelch as the damp bath mat soaks gently through his trousers.  
  
Mary’s face registers shock for two solid seconds before her mouth opens in peals of wonderfully musical laughter. Her beatific smile is infectious, and John feels his face split into an answering grin. It feels right somehow, that it should happen like this; without all the frills and stiff formality. Just the two of them, completely comfortable with each other with no need for obnoxious theatrics.  
  
“Mary Morstan,” he says, his voice steady and confident, all his earlier nervousness dissolved in the face of such overwhelming sense of rightness. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He opens the box with a snap and watches avidly as her face simply lights up, tears of joy pooling in the corners of her eyes.  
  
“Of course!” she shouts and launches herself towards him, knocking the box out of his hand and flinging herself into his arms instead, smothering his face with kisses and cold cream. “Oh god,” she says with mild alarm, clearly realizing the mess she’s making and trying to swipe at John’s face with cream-covered hands. “I’m sorry!”  
  
But John is laughing, pulling her down to the floor and kissing her right back, smearing cream and tears and laughter between them with so much joy he’s worried his chest will burst trying to contain it. They make an utter mess, John’s shirt bearing most of the brunt as Mary climbs on top of him to kiss him breathless. He grabs a flannel from the rack beside the basin and swipes gently over her nose, watching as her face becomes clear through the thick cream, her eyes bright with happiness and love, and John feels his heart swell.  
  
She leans forward and grabs the box over his shoulder, wiping her hands on the flannel before prying the ring out and sliding it onto her finger. John catches her hand and presses his lips to her knuckles, feeling nothing but pride and love as she stares at the glittering diamonds.  
  
“I love you,” she whispers, leaning down to kiss him softly, and John feels the words echo through his chest, warming him through to his very bones. Whatever else happens in his life, and whatever obstacles Sherlock will no doubt put in his way, he has Mary and he has this, and that is enough for John.

: :  
 _As close as the answer I never quite know  
Never quite remember_  
: :

  
John wakes slowly, his mind sluggishly pulling itself out of the deep trenches of sleep. He wishes he could dismiss his wayward emotions as remnants of a horribly familiar dream, but the events of last night are piling up in his brain and making him feel oddly heavy. He blinks his eyes open and stares across the pillows at the back of Mary’s head, a small spark of contented excitement beginning to kindle in his chest when he remembers she’s his _fiancée_ now. John smiles into the darkness of dawn and stretches the kinks out of his sore shoulder. Mary mumbles something in her sleep next to him and rolls farther away, hugging a pillow to her chest and snoring slightly. John finds his grin is entirely ridiculous and hauls himself over the side of the bed to empty his protesting bladder.  
  
He finds his mobile on the bathroom floor, half hidden under the cabinet where it had been knocked last night and forgotten about amid the celebrations. It still has a bit of cream smeared across the screen and he finds himself grinning again, feeling far happier than he has in _ages_. It feels as though there is a great weight that has been lifted from his shoulders and he realizes today is the first day he’s woken up without the gnawing guilt clenching his gut in grief over a man who, it turns out, isn’t actually dead.  
The thought makes John’s face darken a little, but he resolutely remembers that he doesn’t have to bear the burden of sadness anymore. Sherlock is not dead, and surely that is something to be pleased about, but John can feel the anger and betrayal beginning to form a hard knot in the base of his abdomen and he forces himself to take a deep, calming breath.  
  
The little green light in the corner of his mobile is blinking steadily at him, informing him of a missed message and John swipes the screen open as he begins brushing toothpaste into his molars. He nearly spits the foam out when Sherlock’s name flashes across his screen.  
  
John closes his eyes and breathes harshly through his nose, conflicting emotions warring through his chest and making his lungs tight. A very real part of him is giddy at seeing Sherlock’s message, as though it is just as much an everyday occurrence as it had been years ago; as though John wakes up every morning to Sherlock demanding his presence at a crime scene or the morgue, or simply telling him to buy milk or insisting that John get out of bed and make him tea. The sight is so familiar that John feels transported back to Baker Street, and he half expects to open the door to find Sherlock perched on the kitchen chair, wrist-deep in some caustic experiment or another. John’s heart clenches at the thought, but then he remembers the fact that Sherlock _left_ him for two sodding years to go gallivanting across Europe evidently, leaving John alone to pick up the pieces of his own broken life as he mourned the loss of the only person John has ever loved more than life itself.  
  
John’s breath catches in his lungs and he realizes he’s clenching his mobile so hard his knuckles are white with strain. He forces himself to breathe, spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing his mouth before he chokes, wiping his lips on the back of his hand and opening the message.  
  
 _Dinner? SH_  
  
John blinks down at the message, trying to get his brain past the stuttering thought that it’s _Sherlock_ actually texting him. He feels a tension headache beginning at the base of his skull; all the conflicting emotions warring through his brain for dominance. He wants to be happy, to let the overwhelming joy and relief take over, but the bitter tang of rage is still lingering on the back of his tongue. Yes, Sherlock is back, but at what cost? John spent two years mourning the man: two solid years of looking around street corners, sure he’d seen the distinctive silhouette of that damned coat, twenty seven and a half months of feeling like an amputee—that something vital and irreplaceable had been violently torn away from him. Eight hundred and twenty five days of gritted teeth and haunted memories, of aching need and stubborn stoicism. It is just so _like_ Sherlock to waltz back into John’s life and pretend that nothing at all has changed.  
  
John puts his mobile down on the sink and stares at his own reflection in the mirror, noting the tight lines of stress around his eyes and mouth, seeing all the little flaws in his typically solid demeanor. He glares at his mustache, remembering last night and the way Sherlock had made him feel instantly like an outsider in his own life; Sherlock and Mary practically ganging up on him in that greasy kebab shop. How dare he try to appeal to her for help? Sherlock is not allowed to make friends with John’s fiancée. That is not something that is going to happen.  
  
John can feel the resentment and anger spreading steadily through his whole body like a poison. He wrenches open the medicine cabinet and tugs out his razor, resuming the scrubbing of his teeth as he hears signs of Mary stirring from the bedroom. He toes open the bathroom door and watches as she rolls onto her back with an almighty yawn, reaching automatically for her mobile on the bedside table and wincing at the time displayed.  
  
“Morning,” John mumbles through the thick foam in his mouth. She yawns and grins at him, her back curving into an elegant arch as she stretches. John watches her body move, his chest contracting with aching familiarity. She is beautiful and he finds himself wondering again how he managed to get so incredibly lucky. Sighing internally, John opens the cabinet and pulls out his shaving foam, reminding himself firmly that he is _not_ doing this because of Sherlock.  
  
Mary sits up in their bed, rummaging around in her bedside table before pulling out her tablet, clearly running through her morning ritual of checking her email before she gets up. John eyes her warily for a moment before squirting a bit of foam onto his fingers, rubbing it into the hair over his lip with a quiet sense of resignation.  
  
“‘His movements were so silent. So furtive, he reminded me of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent,’” Mary says through the open door.  
  
“You what?” John asks in confusion.  
  
“‘I couldn’t help thinking what an amazing criminal he’d make if he turned his talents against the law.”’  
  
John is suddenly and uncomfortably aware of what exactly it is Mary is reading. He hastens to the door and pokes his head out, trying to ignore the barely-concealed panic rising through his chest. “Don’t read that.”  
  
Mary smiles gleefully at him and cradles the tablet in her hands like a precious gift. “The famous blog, finally!” she crows with unnatural enthusiasm.  
  
John can feel the flush rising up the back of his neck and he’s suddenly absurdly grateful for the shaving foam obscuring most of his face. “Come on – that’s—”  
  
“...Ancient history, yes, I know.” Mary says, shooting him an unreadable look.  “But it’s _not_ , though, is it, because he’s,” she seems to stop abruptly, her keen gaze finally snaring on his face and her face breaks out into an incredulous grin. “What _are_ you doing?”  
  
John is ridiculously uncomfortable. “Having a wash.”  
  
Mary pauses for a moment before her grin seems to widen exponentially. “You’re shaving it off.”  
  
“Well, you hate it,” John says, trying desperately to ignore the way his body is tingling with unvented defense.  
  
“ _Sherlock_ hates it,” Mary emphasizes  
  
“Apparently _everyone_ hates it.”  
  
Mary giggles and John can feel the tension dissipate gradually. Her expression softens and she watches him steadily for a few moments. “Are you gonna see him again?” she asks slowly, as though she’s afraid she’s stepping somehow out of bounds.  
  
John feels his anger resurfacing quickly, but he swallows it back firmly. “No,” he says calmly, “I’m going to work.”  
  
Mary cocks an eyebrow at him and her grin turns mischievous. “Oh. And after work, are you gonna see him again?”  
  
John sighs and rolls his eyes, wondering why on earth he’s even bothering. The small flutter in his chest that surfaced last night seems to intensify for one breathless moment before he shakes his head and retreats back before the mirror.  
  
“Cor, I dunno,” Mary is saying from the bed. “Six months of bristly kisses for me, and then His Nibs turns up—”  
  
Something snaps and John grits his teeth against the wave of intense anger that flares dangerously up the back of his skull. “I don’t shave for Sherlock Holmes,” he says conversationally, but there’s a note of steel in his tone that he dearly hopes she’ll ignore.  
  
“Oh! You should put that on a T-shirt!” she laughs instead. John is profoundly relieved.  
  
“Shut up,” he replies, trying not to smile.  
  
“Or what?” she demands with a cheeky grin.  
  
John turns to her, intending to vent some of his frustration and anger, but she looks so perfect there: curled up on the bed with her knees to her chin like a child. His heart gives a great heave of pressure and his expression clears into a fond smile. “Or I’ll marry you,” he says softly.  
  
Her eyes sparkle for a minute and the look she gives him holds such adoration, he wonders vaguely if he could ever love anyone more. There’s a nagging voice at the back of his head whispering insistently that he _has_ loved someone even more fiercely, but he tamps that thought viciously back. He carefully maneuvers his razor over the contours of his face, mindful of Mary’s continued, but thankfully silent reading.  
  
John rinses his face and raises tentative eyes up to the mirror. If he’s being entirely honest, he agrees with evidently everyone: he looks much better without the mustache. He looks younger, more familiar, much more like the John Watson he used to be— before loss and grief etched deep lines into his face and colored his hair a lighter shade of grey. The face staring back at him now is much harder edged: sharp and curious, the weight of the past two years seeming to slide off of him with every scrape of his razor. Sighing inwardly, John turns to the bedroom to see Mary watching him with a distinct glimmer of mischief in her eye.  
  
“Well?” he says, pausing just out of grabbing range. She smirks up at him and leans forward to pull him down to the bed.  
  
“I’m not sure yet,” she laughs playfully, tugging his face forward and nuzzling her nose against his. “ _Much_ better,” she breathes and John presses forward to run his lips across hers.  
  
Unbidden, his mind shifts violently and he can feel Mary’s lips plump beneath his, her breathy moan rumbling into something darker, deeper, definitely more masculine. John freezes and his eyes open in shock. Mary pauses and blinks up at him in confusion, her flirtatious smile wavering for a moment.  
  
“Everything alright?” she asks warily.  
  
John takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, forcing his mind to focus on Mary: her scent and warmth, her body beneath his as he leans into her. It’s familiar and grounding and he grasps at her waist like a drowning man.  
  
“Yeah,” he mumbles eventually. “Just… different. More sensitive without the, y’know…”  
  
Mary giggles and pulls him forward again, licking along his upper lip before pressing her tongue into his mouth with a sigh. John sinks into the kiss gratefully, rolling his body into hers and feeling his cock begin to thicken in his pants. Mary gasps and arches against him, and he can feel the heat of her cunt through her thin trousers. He pushes himself against her, rubbing the tip of his prick between the folds of her pussy through the cotton and swallowing her moan against his tongue. It feels deliciously dirty, like he’s a teenager again, but she pulls away reluctantly a moment later.  
  
“God, I’m sorry,” she whispers in clear frustration. “But I’ve got to get going. I’m late already.”  
  
John grunts something non-committal, knowing she’s right, but resenting the interruption anyway. She smiles sadly at him and rolls away, tugging at her clothing and shooting him a filthy smirk before shutting herself away in the toilet. John hears the shower start up a moment later and wishes—not for the first time—that their flat had a proper tub instead of the single shower stall. He can just imagine himself bending her at the waist and pounding into her as the water cascades in rivulets down the long, thin line of her back; pale skin marred only by the indent of ribs, dark curls flattened by the weight of the water as John thrusts hard and deep—  
  
Wait.  
  
John’s eyes fly open and he removes his hand from the front of his pants, suddenly cold in a way that has nothing to do with the chill October air. He feels dread sink hot and hard into the pit of his stomach, long-repressed fantasies abruptly resurfacing. He hasn’t wanked to the thought of Sherlock in over a year, and the fact that he’d ever done so at all has remained a closely held secret, unacknowledged except in the darkest hours of the night. Guilt rears up and John feels like he’s drowning again; confusion and anger and arousal mixing through his blood and making him harder and more desperate than ever.  
  
Huffing a little in resignation, John shoves his pants down to his thighs and wraps his fingers around his cock, firmly steering his thoughts away from Sherlock. Mary’s face swims into his vision, her neck arched back in ecstasy as she rides his prick. Yes. That memory has been a particular favorite lately. John strokes himself firmly, remembering the way her inner muscles had gripped him, sliding himself into her slick heat as she rocked her hips in an increasing tempo. John sighs and tightens his hand, imaging flipping them over, shoving his cock hard into her as she moans, the deep, sonorous sound washing over him like a tide. He gazes down into her face, sharp cheekbones flushed with arousal as long, long legs wrap tightly around his hips.  
  
Groaning in frustration, John switches fantasies, imagining fisting his fingers into Mary’s short hair, her mouth open and wet around his glans, her tongue flicking wicked little licks along his frenulum as he pushes his cock deep into her throat. He can feel himself getting close, his own fist flying over his shaft, fingers pinching around his foreskin as he snaps his hips up. Mary’s curls twine around his fingers and the low, rumbling groan vibrates up through his prick. John’s breath catches and he squirms against the sheets, imagining one long, slick finger pushing back behind his balls, stroking over the skin of his perineum and circling around his arsehole. John gasps, tightening his hands in imaginary dark curls, plush lips tightening around his cock and he looks down to see bright, mercurial irises blink up at him, heat and possessiveness laced through almond-shaped eyes.  
  
“Oh _fuck_ ,” John gasps and he is coming, Sherlock’s name hovering just behind his teeth. John lays there, stunned, for many minutes, the sticky sensation of cooling semen adding to his distinct discomfort.  
  
The pipes groan and he can hear the abrupt stop of the water as Mary clearly finishes her shower. Guilt stabs through the fog and he scrambles up, wiping the evidence of his own orgasm from his abdomen with shaking fingers. He dresses quickly and places himself as casually as he can in the kitchen, firmly ignoring his own mortified flush as Mary comes bustling through the flat.  
  
“I’ll see you after, yeah?” she says quickly, stopping to place a kiss against his temple on her way to the door. “And then we can finish what you started,” she adds with a wink. John tries to smile back, but his throat feels unaccountably tight and he knows it comes out more like a grimace.  
  
“You sure you’re alright?” she says, pausing with one foot out the door.  
  
John clears his throat and pushes down all thoughts of pale skin and wide, dark eyes. “Yeah. Just… a lot going on right now, y’know?”  
  
Mary smiles softly at him in understanding and John feels the guilt intensify. “Just _talk_ to him,” she insists gently. “You know you’ll feel better if you do.” She glances down at her watch and gasps, “Bugger. I’ve got to dash. Love you!” And then she’s out the door, the soft patter of her shoes clattering down the stairs and out into the city.  
  
John sighs and sinks into the kitchen chair, wondering how on earth his life has become so utterly fucked.

 

: :  
 _Your distance insidious, as soft as a blow  
Your shadow is with me wherever I go_  
: :

  
John forces himself to forget about Sherlock. It works about as spectacularly as it had when Sherlock had first died— _disappeared_ , his mind supplies helpfully. He moves through the world as though in a daze, his mind constantly stalling out around the fact that Sherlock is _alive_. He hadn’t responded to Sherlock’s invitation to dinner. He has no intention of opening up that line of communication again, and yet he keeps finding his hand straying to his pocket, imaginary vibrations alerting him to non-existent text messages.  
  
Mary keeps giving him loaded looks every time she catches him at it, and he is frankly sick to death of their circular arguments regarding his own stubborn silence. The fact that Sherlock is causing issues in his relationship without even being present is ridiculous, and John flat out refuses to carry on with his invisible presence hanging over their flat like a shroud.  
  
“Listen,” John finds himself saying to Mary one night after a particularly irritating round of verbal sparring, exasperation and annoyance clear through his tone. “This is between me and Sherlock, okay? I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but I’m just not ready.”  
  
Mary levels her gaze at him and John has the disconcerting feeling that she can see right through his hollow words. “He’s not doing well, you know,” she says casually, scrubbing at the dinner plate in her hand.  
  
John’s face whips around to stare incredulously at her. “And how the hell would you know?” he demands, anger and something darker flaring up through his lungs.  
  
Mary glares right back and shrugs, setting the dish into the drying rack and plunging the serving tray into the soapy water. “I asked Molly,” she intones evenly, and John feels his heart stutter painfully.  
  
“Why?” he says, probably louder than he intended because she stiffens visibly and rounds on him, soapy hands propped into little fists on her hips.  
  
“Because I _care_ , John,” she shouts back. “Because you’ve done nothing more than mope around the flat for _two weeks_ and it’s honestly grating on my last nerve.” He huffs and her expression darkens further. “You two are acting like children,” she spits, throwing the dish towel onto the worktop with a wet squelch. She storms out of the kitchen, leaving John to stand in the stunned silence. He has never heard her explode like that and a small part of him revels in the excitement, but the majority of his senses are writhing in guilt and self-loathing.  
  
John takes a deep breath and follows her through to the bedroom, where she is angrily folding and storing the laundry, the hard line of her posture making him feel even worse.  
  
“I’m sorry,” John mumbles weakly.  
  
She sighs, but he can see her shoulders relax. Slowly, he steps up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her into his chest and running his lips along the nape of her neck. She huffs a small, humorless laugh, but doesn’t pull away.  
  
“He took Molly on a case, you know,” she says softly and John feels himself freeze. Anger and jealousy curl dangerously in the pit of his stomach and he forces himself to calm before he responds.  
  
“Oh?” is all he can manage.  
  
Mary sighs and turns in his arms, sliding her hands up to his shoulders and pulling his gaze to hers. “According to Molly, he kept calling her by your name and forgetting you weren’t there. If that doesn’t prove he misses you desperately, I’m not sure what does.”  
  
John feels his heart sink, jealousy and bitter resignation shriveling into something that looks disturbingly like anguish. He closes his eyes and tries to picture it: poor, besotted Molly trailing after Sherlock and trying to keep up with his deductive ramblings as Sherlock keeps addressing her by the wrong name. Not only the wrong name, but _John’s_ name. He winces and feels a small flare of pity for the girl. It isn’t her fault Sherlock has the emotional development of a tea kettle.  
  
Mary’s lips press against the creases of his forehead and he sighs deeply, wondering which of them she’s meaning to comfort.  
  
“Just _talk_ to him, John,” she whispers. He blinks his eyes open to stare into her wide blue eyes. She smiles sadly and kisses the very tip of his nose. “For me?”  
  
John sighs and nods once, registering briefly her bright smile before she turns away to finish the laundry. If his chest feels a little less tight, he doesn’t think too hard about it.

 

: :  
 _You were a single red blood cell  
And I lost you in this knot of capillaries  
But you were bringing me oxygen when I needed it most through the smoke_  
: :

  
Smoke. John smells smoke and the unmistakable scent of petrol, and he feels his chest begin to tighten as panic and confusion threaten his consciousness again. He feels paralyzed, his brain slow and sluggish in the aftermath of whatever drug they’ve pumped into his system. He realizes he cannot move his body and tries to shout for help, but his vocal chords will not work. Even his lungs feel frozen, and he spares one moment to bask in the irony of having gotten snatched right in the middle of trying to reconcile his ridiculously detrimental relationship with Sherlock Holmes.  
  
Alarm begins to cloud into his mind, but he forces it back, knowing with a soldier’s certainty that the only thing worse than being in this situation is panicking himself into hyperventilation; especially with the paralyzing effects of the hypodermic they’d shoved into his neck. He tries to take a deep breath and gather his faculties, but the scent of pine and carbon is choking in its intensity. He concentrates hard and tries to call out, but his throat is completely still.  
  
He can hear people talking and children laughing, and he spares a precious modicum of energy trying to see out through the slats of wood, but it’s no use. Something wet splashes across John’s cheek, the sickly slick scent of petrol seems to grow stronger, and John suddenly knows without a shadow of a doubt that this is how he dies. Overwhelming grief swells up through his chest and he shuts his eyes tight, concentrating every last ounce of energy to his vocal chords, managing a weak shout.  
  
 _Please, god. Let me live_ , he thinks furtively, and tries again, his cries growing louder with each passing second. There’s a flare of heat and unbearably bright light and John feels his blood freeze in his veins as flames erupt in front of his face, smoke immediately bellowing into the small space he occupies.  
  
“I’m sorry,” John whispers to nobody, his mouth barely moving around words swallowed up in the haze of the fire. He thinks of Mary; beautiful and sweet and loving in ways he’s never deserved. He thinks of Sherlock, of the way he looks at John like he’s the only marvelous thing in the world, and John’s very chest seems to cave in; emotions too deep to even voice through the panicked fog. John lets his vision cloud, allows his lungs one last breath of smoke-filled air before his head falls back and he surrenders to death.  
  
Suddenly, there’s a deafening outcry and John can feel cool air fan across his face, clear and heavenly and John wonders idly if this is what dying feels like. But then there are hands, strong and sharp, reaching through the burning rubble and John is seized around the ankle, hoisted and dragged across the smoldering ground.  
  
Someone is saying his name, low and urgent, but John’s eyes feel glued shut, his throat gummy and slow. He tries to swallow, but chokes instead, great wracking coughs slicing through his throat as his lungs stall out around each stuttering breath.  
  
“John.”  
  
John’s eyes blink open, but they’re still bleary with smoke and the remnants of the drug. His whole head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, but he tries to focus.  
  
“ _John_.”  
  
Cool fingers slide along his cheek and John whimpers slightly at the contact; fresh and soothing against the blistering skin on his face. He leans into the touch, his eyes closing again at the comforting sense of _safe_.  
  
“John?”  
  
John forces his eyes open again and his vision swims dizzyingly, but Sherlock’s face looms gracefully before him: dark curls tipped with gold as the fire rages behind him. He looks like an avenging angel, and John feels his chapped lips stretch painfully into something like a smile.  
  
“ _John!_ ”  
  
Mary’s voice cuts through the haze and she appears next to Sherlock, her lovely face suddenly aged ten years with worry and panic. Sherlock doesn’t even blink, but John can feel the hands cradling his face tighten briefly. John hears sirens approaching, but Sherlock gently strokes his thumb across John’s temple and everything else seems to fade into the background.  
  
Mary’s bright coat speeds across his vision, and John can see her running towards the flashing lights, clearly going to meet emergency services. John tries to say something, to ease her panic and sooth his own weary nerves, but he only succeeds in wheezing feebly.  
  
Sherlock tuts, and John can feel him shift; graceful muscle and wiry sinew stretching forward, John’s weight shuffled around until Sherlock is sitting behind him, John’s head resting lightly across his narrow thighs. Strong, delicate fingers card gently through his hair and John’s eyes close on a raspy groan.  
  
“Hang on, John,” Sherlock whispers, something tender and heartbreakingly vulnerable in his tone. “I’ve got you.” And the world goes dark.

 

: :  
 _It’s on the tip of my tongue, but still I never quite know  
Never quite remember_  
: :

  
Sherlock is obviously still on edge, almost treating John as some kind of fragile piece of spun glass that needs constant attention, or else completely ignoring him in what John recognizes as long bouts of child-like apprehension—as if he expects John to shout at him again. It grates on John’s nerves, but the blinding anger is less insistent than it was before. John had woken up this morning to a text message, almost hesitant and completely unlike the Sherlock John used to know:  
  
 _Urgent case. Could use your help if you’re available. SH_  
  
John winces at the signature, wondering why Sherlock feels the need to sign his texts again. He hadn’t done so with John since the very first week of them living together, and somehow those two little letters are strange and accusatory, and John feels the twisted lump of emotion writhe in his chest. This new version of Sherlock is completely jarring and John hates that he is at least partially responsible.  
  
He thinks back to the expression on Sherlock’s face as he’d yanked him bodily out of the raging flames. Sherlock had been clearly terrified, his entire body rigid with alarm and flushed with adrenaline. John barely remembers the ambulance, but he definitely recalls the image of Sherlock’s face: stark white and horrified as he’d watched the paramedics strap a plastic mask over John’s nose and mouth, pumping much-needed oxygen through his blood and into his brain. John’s vision had cleared a little, but all he could see was Sherlock in front of him; face serious and openly vulnerable.  
  
John grits his teeth and forcefully pulls his mind back into the present.  
  
“Alright?” Mary says from behind him, and John nods into his cup of tea. She’s been carefully quiet as well, as though afraid he’s going to disintegrate right in front of her should she speak too loudly. John _hates_ it, but he hates himself more for begrudging her her obvious distress.  
  
Mary shifts closer and places a plate of eggs onto the table in front of him, her small hand resting gently on his shoulder as she leans forward. She brushes a kiss to the top of his head and John feels his chest stutter with suddenly labored breath.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and he can feel the way she stills perfectly behind him.  
  
“John,” she murmurs, and he can detect a lingering sadness in her tone.  
  
“I didn’t mean to worry you,” John insists, feeling the overwhelming and completely unreasonable guilt sink all the way down his spine. Mary sighs and presses her forehead to the back of his skull, and John can tell there’s more going on here than his own swelling sense of apprehension.  
  
“It’s not you, John,” she says softly, and John feels a shiver run through his skin at her tone. “I’m just—” but she cuts herself off.  
  
“Hey,” John mutters, turning in his chair and reaching for her. He’s startled to see that her eyes are suspiciously shiny and the deep well of guilt seems to widen. “It’s alright. _I’m_ alright. It was just a misunderstanding.” She shoots him an incredulous look, but her lips are twitching at the corners. John smiles back up at her, his thumb sweeping tenderly across her cheekbone.  
  
“I don’t want to worry you further, but this kind of thing is disturbingly normal around Sherlock.” John bites his lip and waits for her reaction. She huffs a gentle laugh and leans into his palm, her lips brushing softly across the pad of his thumb.  
  
“Still sure you want me to be his friend again?” John teases softly, and Mary laughs outright, her face clearing into that familiar, warm amusement. John feels something shake loose behind his ribs and he leans in to press his lips to hers. She tastes of mint and toast and the achingly sweet, comforting sense of _normality_.  
  
Mary pulls back after a moment, keeping her eyes shut tight as she seems to steel herself. “Are you sure it was about him?” she whispers, so soft he can barely hear her.  
  
“What do you mean? Of course it was about him. It’s _always_ about him,” John assures her, trying to keep the wry, bitter undertone out of his voice, but clearly failing miserably. Mary’s eyelashes sweep open and she pins him with a hard stare, something pleading and dark behind her eyes, but she blinks again and it’s gone.  
  
John eyes her warily for a moment, but she smiles at him again and pecks him on the cheek, pulling away to refill the kettle.  
  
“You should go to see him,” she says distractedly, and the strain of the last few minutes seems to fade away into nothing. John can feel the tension begin again at the back of his head, though; a stress headache that seems to intensify every time he thinks about Sherlock’s terrified face.  
  
“I might do.”  
  
Mary turns to pin him with a stern look. “You should go today.” John doesn’t respond, but Mary comes back towards the table, leaning a hip on the edge and crossing her arms stubbornly. “You need to let yourself forgive him, John,” she says firmly. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see his face.” She glances silently to the side and bites her lip for a moment as if she’s weighing her words carefully. John feels a prickle of something strange begin in his fingertips.  
  
“I know this is hard for you,” she starts slowly, but her gaze shifts back towards him and there’s something that looks suspiciously like pain lingering there. “But you need to let him apologize. He loves you, John. Far more than any friendship I’ve ever seen. You not speaking to him is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to him and I know he’s just as emotionally constipated as you are, if not more so, but don’t let yourself become cruel for the sake of your pride. That’s not the John Watson I fell in love with.”  
  
John can actually feel all the blood drain from his face, the dizzying power of her words making the air freeze in his lungs. He feels as paralyzed as he had last night, and he wonders briefly if there’s still a bit of the drug left over in his system, but she’s still staring at him with that hard, blazing look and John swallows back all of his immediate denial.  
  
“I…” John starts, completely unable to formulate a coherent thought.  
  
“ _Please_ , John.” Mary is still watching him with too-bright, wide eyes. “You need to sort this out with him before the wedding, or you’ll live the rest of your life wondering at what could have been. I can be many things to you, John, but don’t ever make me into something you regret.”  
  
John blinks rapidly, the swelling sense of panic receding a little at her innate practicality. “You know from experience, do you?” he croaks.  
  
Her eyes fall shut and her jaw hardens, and John immediately regrets asking. She’d told him when they’d first met that she didn’t like to dwell on her past mistakes, that she preferred to live in the here and now, and John had let the matter drop without a second thought. He’d been glad, even, to meet someone who didn’t want to talk about past lovers and romantic histories. He still isn’t sure where Sherlock belongs in regards to his own fruitless feelings, and here he is, lashing out at the one person who has done nothing but support him during the darkest part of his life.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and means it.  
  
Her expression crumples for a split second before she visibly gathers herself and she smiles sadly over at him. “Just… go talk to him, John. Please.”  
  
“Yeah, alright,” he agrees, relieved when the tension around her mouth eases.

 

: :  
 _I keep nearly missing you around corners and in passing trains_  
: :

  
Sherlock is maddening as ever, but John has to admit that coming here to talk to him today was a good idea. Sherlock seems less twitchy than he had done the night before, and although his outward appearance is immaculate as ever, John can see the lines of tension in his spine every time he turns to look at the photo-ridden wall.  
  
They’re doing a dance now that’s both achingly familiar and entirely exasperating. John can feel Sherlock’s intense gaze on him every time he looks away, and the sheer amount of unspoken words between them seem to hang in the air like a dense fog. But then all of a sudden, the tension breaks and Sherlock is _luminous_ : deduction and genius falling from his lips like starlight and John cannot help but be swept up into it like a moth to flame.  
  
“Sometimes a deception is so audacious, so outrageous that you can’t see it even when it’s staring you in the face.”  
  
John feels his jaw clench, the radial tide of rage beginning to creep back up the nape of his neck, but he swallows back the emotions in favor of listening as Sherlock lays out the whole puzzle in meticulous, brutal detail. Sherlock comes closer to lean over his shoulder, and John finds himself inexplicably breathless at the casual contact; all of his riotous emotions spiralling into overdrive at Sherlock’s proximity.  
  
“Look – seven carriages leave Westminster, but only _six_ carriages arrive at St James’s Park,” Sherlock says.  
  
John is momentarily snapped out of his uncomfortable self-inflection. “But that’s ... I ... it’s-it’s impossible.”  
  
Sherlock’s mouth quirks a little at the corner, but he leans in even further in emphasis. “Moran didn’t disappear – the entire Tube compartment did. The driver must have diverted the train and then detached the last carriage.”  
  
“Detached it where?” John snorts in incredulity. “You said there was nothing between those stations.”  
  
John can feel Sherlock’s breath on the back of his neck; that typical, electric awareness of his body heat distracting enough that John takes a deep, involuntary breath. Sherlock seems to hover there for a split second before visibly snapping back to himself, gesturing hard at the screen in front of him. “Not on the maps, but once you eliminate all the other factors, the only thing remaining must be the truth. That carriage vanished, so it must be _somewhere_.”  
  
“But _why_ , though? Why detach it in the first place?”  
  
Sherlock pulls back and begins pacing; the usual irritation at the problem laid out before him far more comforting than it probably should be. John can feel his attention shift; every single neuron seeming to hone in on Sherlock’s amazing brilliance. It feels at once normal and utterly disarming, and John tries valiantly to ignore the unease that thought produces.  
  
“It vanishes between St James’s Park and Westminster,” Sherlock is saying. “Lord Moran vanishes. You’re kidnapped and nearly burned to death at a fireworks par...”  
  
He abruptly halts, and John braces himself for the flood of affection that accompanies Sherlock’s unabashed cleverness.  
  
“What’s the date, John – today’s date?”  
  
“Hmm?” John tears his eyes away from the way Sherlock’s mouth moves around his name and concentrates. “ November the…  my god.”  
  
Sherlock grins darkly, and John feels something harsh and jagged curl painfully in the pit of his stomach, but Sherlock moves past him towards the wall, his focus averted again. “Lord Moran – he’s a peer of the realm. Normally he’d sit in the House. Tonight there’s an all-night sitting to vote on the new anti-terrorism Bill. But he won’t be there. Not tonight.” He turns to John, the sharp glint of understanding shining through his eyes. “Not the fifth of November.”  
  
“Remember, remember,” John murmurs.  
  
“Gunpowder treason and plot.” Sherlock flashes him a tight grin and John feels as though the very ground beneath his feet is crumbling to dust.  
  
Something warm and dangerous seems to expand between them, all the lingering strain from the weeks previous—hell, from the _years_ previous—seeming to evaporate into forgotten memory. It feels like coming home; like adrenaline and gunfire and everything he’s ever wanted and more. Sherlock’s grin is sharp and predatory, and John can feel his answering expression isn’t exactly tame. This is what he’s been missing in his life: this sense of belonging, of purpose, of _life_.  
  
It’s the thrill of the chase, the rush of adrenaline and suddenly John is back to two and a half years previous: watching on as Sherlock takes apart the puzzle and works through the various channels of his magnificent thought process. John feels his lips thin out into a wide smile, Sherlock’s glorious brain speeding through all the evidence and creating a tapestry of deduction for John to marvel at. It’s heady and addictive, and John finds his pulse speeding up of its own volition; body unconsciously leaning forward into Sherlock’s magnetic pull.  
  
Sherlock stops just at the edge of John’s chair, hands moving beneath John’s arms and hauling him to stand, the gleam of the hunt visceral and sparkling in his eyes. John finds himself grinning, chest tight with the familiar throbbing need to run, to chase, to _fight_.  
  
John can feel it, sharp and raw; that familiar tension between them crackling and pulsing, making the very air seem to vibrate with intensity. There’s a desperate yearning, years of camaraderie and friendship scored with a deep undertone of unspoken desire, almost hidden away behind Sherlock’s eyes and John finds himself leaning in without even realizing it. He stops himself a breath away from Sherlock’s face, lips unconsciously pursed and parted, desire flaring up so hard in his chest, he finds himself unable to breathe for long seconds. Sherlock is utterly still before him, eyes slightly widened, but John can see the flicker of his pulse beneath the pale skin of his throat: tellingly elevated, cheeks flushing a delicate conch-shell pink.  
  
John takes a deep breath and feels his head clear for the first time in what feels like years. He tentatively leans closer, feeling the flare of Sherlock’s breath hot against the sensitive skin of his lips. Sherlock’s mouth opens a little and he huffs out a small breath before he seems to suddenly snap back into himself. He inhales sharply and pulls violently back, the concussion of air filling his previously occupied space throwing John completely off balance.  
  
“Don’t,” Sherlock bites out, harsh and foreboding, and John can feel his own cheeks heat in mortified defiance.  
  
“Sherlock,” he says instead, absurdly proud of how steady his voice sounds.  
  
“ _Don’t_ ,” Sherlock snaps again, even more forcefully, and John feels as though he’s been slapped. He can feel his defenses sliding into place; his spine straightening to military precision, his shoulders squaring for an attack, rejection burning hot and hard in his abdomen.  
  
Sherlock rounds on him, and John is momentarily startled into stillness by the sheer fury clouding his face. He looks positively livid, and John can feel his own confusion eating away at his towering emotions.  
  
“Sherlock, what--”  
  
“Piss _off_ , John,” Sherlock grits out. “I don’t need your forgiveness and I certainly don’t want your _pity_.” John blinks back at him in complete shock.  
  
“Pity? Sherlock, that’s not—”  
  
“Walk away,” Sherlock says, low and menacing, and John feels his feet back up several paces on pure instinct before he stops himself and locks his knees. He can feel his own fury rising to the forefront: two weeks of not speaking to this man after he’d waltzed back into his life with seemingly no real appreciation of what his supposed death had done to John on top of two sodding years thinking the bastard was dead, and now this. John’s face darkens into something terrifying and strange and he can feel a small thrill of malicious pride at Sherlock’s balking expression before he visibly hardens his resolve; pale irises contracting into something dark and feral.  
  
They glare at each other from across the room for a few breathless heartbeats before Sherlock finally drops his gaze, clearing his throat pointedly and pacing over to the kitchen table, footsteps deliberately even. John feels the tension in his shoulders ease a little, but he’s still horribly wrong-footed. Sherlock opens his laptop with a decisive creak and begins tapping furiously.  
  
“John, what’s your Skype password?” he asks eventually. John blinks at him, confused for a split second before he huffs out a self-deprecating laugh.  
  
“What, you can’t just tell? Out of practice, are you?” It’s petty and he knows it, but he’s feeling spiteful and irrationally defensive at the moment.  
  
Sherlock’s shoulders stiffen and he holds himself perfectly still for five whole seconds, long, pale fingers hovering immobile over the keyboard before he relaxes marginally with a deep breath. “I thought it prudent to ask, since you used to get so tetchy when I would deduce the answer.”  
  
John’s jaw tightens and he forces himself to calm before he moves over to the kitchen, placing a rock-steady hand on the back of Sherlock’s chair and leaning over his shoulder to type in the password. He can see Sherlock’s infuriatingly indifferent face in his peripheral vision, but he ignores the way his stomach clenches in favor of regulating his breathing. He can smell Sherlock’s aftershave; warm and spicy with the distinct undertone of masculinity and Sherlock’s own sweat. It’s terribly distracting, but John won’t give the man the satisfaction of moving away first. If Sherlock is determined to ignore the sexual tension between them, John is not going to back down either.  
  
Sherlock takes a deep breath, and John can see his eyes flutter closed for a moment before he blinks them open again to type in an email address. He stands so quickly, John is nearly knocked off balance and then he’s around the he chair and ushering John into it with a large hand at the small of John’s back, muttering something about trains and wandering over to the worktop to grab at what looks like an atlas.  
  
“Oi-oi,” someone says through the gritty connection and John turns to stare at the grainy image of the man in the peculiar hat on Sherlock’s laptop.  
  
“Erm, hello,” John says, bewildered.  
  
“Oh. You must be John,” the man says with a smile. John nods back, still feeling thrown, but then Sherlock is there, leaning into his personal space and smelling delicious, and John feels his head spinning from sheer proximity. The anticipation is so sharp he can _taste_ it, but Sherlock is ignoring him entirely in favor of speaking with the man through the computer. John can barely keep his mind from spinning wildly out of control, the heat from Sherlock’s chest seeming to burn straight through to his spine.  
  
But then Sherlock is up and off, grabbing at his Belstaff and throwing a simple “Come on, John,” over his shoulder, and John drags his wayward thoughts back to the matter at hand. They have a case, after all.

 

: :  
 _It’s on the tip of my tongue, it’s on the tip of my—_  
: :

  
There is a missing train carriage, and there is a bomb, and there is Sherlock.  
  
John can feel the infuriating mix of shocked adoration and utter incredulity as Sherlock graces him with one of his rare, real smiles. Suddenly all the tension between them seems to vanish and John feels himself give an answering, if begrudging huff of laughter. It feels like the years between them have collapsed into nothing, and John marvels at the feeling of absolute freedom.  
  
Sherlock winks again and swings himself down from the train’s carriage, pausing only to tug on his coat sleeves before strutting confidently towards the oncoming police. John swallows the urge to simultaneously laugh and punch Sherlock in the face, all of his previous adrenaline fading into that familiar exasperated amusement he remembers from years of living with this madman. His fingertips are losing their numb quality as his body begins to realize he’s not about to die. His heart feels inexplicably free for the first time since Sherlock’s return, and he allows himself a brief moment to simply _be._  
  
He’d nearly forgotten what it’s like to let his body spin through so much emotion at once: to feel the terror and rush of imminent disaster flooding through his veins, to honestly wonder from one second to the next if he will survive the following few minutes, to have all of his senses honed and sharpened around the only blindingly bright spot in the entire world: Sherlock, shining like a beacon through the haze of chemicals and panic. John opens his eyes to a world full of possibility, to a life full of purpose again, to the incredible and devastating sight of Sherlock’s coat swaying in agitation as he explains his actions in his usual rapid-fire vocabulary.  
  
The next few hours pass in a blur: John’s mind refusing to focus clearly on one thing as he and Sherlock are escorted back to NSY by a harried, but clearly bemused Lestrade. Greg takes their statements with an air of barely-suppressed glee, and John can tell he’s not the only one reminiscing on years past. Sherlock ignores both of them with his usual abrasive arrogance, but he keeps stealing glances towards John when he thinks John isn’t paying attention, and the warm, heated expression in his eyes makes John’s chest ache with unfulfilled longing.  
  
They take a taxi back to Baker Street, both of them silent as they contemplate the evening’s events. John can feel his heart rate finally slowing into something vaguely resembling normality. He knows he should text Mary, so he pulls out his mobile and sends her a quick explanation, reassured when her only answer is relief and a nudge that he should clearly stay at Baker Street tonight.  
  
John’s brow furrows in confusion, but he hastily types back: _Why? I can come home._  
  
 _Don’t leave him again. Especially not after something like this. Trust yourself and TALK to him, John._  
John blinks down at the message and wonders why it feels like his fiancée is trying to set him up with his best friend.  
  
“You need to be getting home,” Sherlock intones evenly, sounding bored, but John knows better.  
  
“Actually,” John says, pocketing his mobile and turning to fully look at Sherlock across the cheap leather seats. “I think I’ll stay tonight, if that’s alright with you.”  
  
Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline, but John can see the tension around his shoulders ease a little.  
  
“Won’t you be missed?” he asks carefully.  
  
“Mary’s fine with it.” Sherlock’s eyebrows climb impossibly higher, but he nods once and turns back to stare out of the window, and John recognizes Sherlock’s contemplative silence as the processing time it is.  
  
Time pulls like taffy between them, and John finds himself simultaneously impatient to get to Baker Street, and sick with apprehension over what will happen when they arrive. Sherlock’s face is an inscrutable mask of calculated indifference, but John can see the way his fingers twitch against his thighs, and he knows his feelings are not entirely one-sided.  
  
The taxi slows to a stop and John is honestly startled when Sherlock leans forward to pay the driver, holding the door open for John as he exits and then preceding him to the familiar dark door. Sherlock’s movements are overly formal, and John thinks this might actually be what Sherlock is like when he’s nervous. The thought is ridiculously endearing, and John allows himself to relax marginally as he steps through the sitting room door and slides out of his coat.  
  
Sherlock fidgets for a moment with his own coat, tucking his gloves securely into the pocket before turning his averted gaze towards John.  
  
He clears his throat and says: “I can make up the bed upstairs, if you’d like. I’m sure there is a spare set of sheets somewhere.”  
  
“You’re a prick,” John says calmly, and smiles a little when Sherlock’s eyes snap immediately to his own, his face a perfect mask of shocked outrage for a split second before it stretches into a lazy, pompous grin.  
  
“Surely you’re not complaining, John,” Sherlock drawls, and the achingly familiar weight of companionability settles between them once more. John finds himself grinning again in spite of himself, and moves forward with an air of authority he doesn’t entirely feel.  
  
John allows himself a brief moment to wonder what the hell he’s doing before he leans forward and presses his lips softly against Sherlock’s. Sherlock completely freezes, eyes widening in shock for a split second, and John worries idly if he’s about to be thrown off again. But then Sherlock moans, low and resonant and his eyes appear to shine before he slams them closed and seems to melt forward, exhaling heavily through his nose and swaying into John.  
  
John moves his hands to Sherlock’s shoulders, pulling him in tighter, but not breaking the connection where their mouths meet. It is chaste and soft and not at all the way John would have expected their first kiss to go. He tilts his head slightly to the side, mouth moving softly, but not pressing for more. Sherlock makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat and suddenly John feels long fingers digging into his hair, pulling his mouth forward and tipping his head back and then Sherlock’s tongue is there, sweeping into his mouth and demanding compliance; the kiss going from hesitant to burning in less than a second. John groans and opens his mouth wider, all of his suppressed longing and shameful desire flaring hot and hard up the base of his spine.  
  
“John,” Sherlock breaks away to whisper, desperate and gasping before he presses their mouths together again, licking along John’s tongue and curling in behind his teeth.  
  
John can taste the desire, the mutual frantic passion that’s been building between them for _years_ , overwhelming and terrifying in its intensity. Sherlock moans again, and John can feel it rumbling up through his chest, deep into John’s very bones, and suddenly it’s not enough. He jerks hard on Sherlock’s shoulders, overbalancing both of them and crashing hard into the wall. Sherlock grunts a little, but doesn’t protest as John presses him backwards, merely tilting his head back and allowing John’s mouth to dominate the kiss. It is hungry and possessive, and John ignores the small voice in the back of his brain that is urging him to remember Mary, to pull back and settle this _thing_ between them before he does something irrevocably stupid that threatens their entire relationship, but he cannot be bothered with semantics; not now with Sherlock’s narrow thigh insinuating itself between John’s legs, with the heavy press of him, hot and hard against John’s hip. Not with the way Sherlock’s mouth is soft and pliant, letting John set the pace of the kiss even as he sinks down the wall a few inches, aligning their straining erections and pushing his hips forward.  
  
John breaks the connection of their mouths to groan into the skin of Sherlock’s exposed collarbone. Sherlock is shaking in his arms; a fine tremor rushing across his body and causing John’s own skin to pebble in gooseflesh, an electric charge that seems to chase its way over muscle and tendon and causes all the small hairs on the back of John’s neck to stand up.  
  
There’s too much between them; too many unspoken emotions, too many missed opportunities, too many words left unsaid for too long and John feels like he’s suffocating. They’ve left this to fester, unacknowledged and forgotten, swept beneath layers of stubborn stoicism and blatant refusal, and now it is a malignant thing, all-consuming and nearly violent in its vehemence.  
  
John tears his mouth away and forces himself to still, clenching his hands tightly around the lush swell of Sherlock’s arse where his traitorous fingers have crept beneath the narrow band of bespoke trousers.  
  
“Sherlock,” he pants, closing his eyes against the tantalizing vision before him: Sherlock, wrecked and flushed, lips bruised and parted, eyes bright and shining with carnal intensity. “Sherlock, we can’t—”  
  
“Don’t,” Sherlock cuts in, his voice low and rough. “Don’t you _dare_ stop, John Watson.”  
  
He is insistent and fierce, and John simply falls into it: into the swelling, churning need that rises up from his very toes and crests over them both, thrashing and painful in their desperation. Sherlock latches his mouth to the side of John’s neck, and John can practically feel the bruise forming; capillaries breaking and marking him with irretrievable proof of their shared desire. He spares a brief second to worry about the visibility and what on earth Mary is going to say, but then Sherlock’s long fingers creep down his abdomen and into the front of his denims and all rationality flies spectacularly out the window.  
  
“John,” Sherlock rumbles directly into his ear, and it seems like the entire universe narrows down to a precise point; Sherlock the only thing vibrant and alive in John’s world of mottled grey. John gasps into Sherlock’s mouth as his nimble fingers tug relentlessly on the stiff fabric of John’s trousers, and then Sherlock’s hand is _there_ , squirming beneath John’s damp pants to curl greedily around his cock and _pulling_.  
  
John’s knees promptly dissolve and he finds himself held tightly against a heaving chest, remaining vertical only by the sheer weight of Sherlock’s arm like an iron band around the small of his back. Sherlock is panting humid air into the space behind John’s ear, and the mere sound of his low, gruff gasps has John on the edge already. Sherlock twists his wrist, pulling back John’s foreskin to tease his glans with the very edge of his thumb and John makes a jagged noise, animalistic and primal and suddenly they’re kissing again, all restraint lost in the heady rush for power and dominance.  
  
Sherlock growls into John’s mouth, all hot breath and raw passion and John gasps in response, his fingers digging painfully into the skin at the back of Sherlock’s neck. He can feel the tender flesh there breaking under his fingernails and he scrapes a long, ragged line down the back of Sherlock’s shirt, yanking at the fabric until it gives and comes tumbling out of the back of Sherlock’s expensive wool trousers.  
  
Sherlock grunts and presses in harder, mouth smearing across John’s with more teeth than tongue and John can feel the edges of his control slipping tenuously over the edge of sanity and into the unknown. Sherlock makes a harsh noise and John feels gravity shift, Sherlock shoving him roughly back enough to create a small space between them. John wants to protest, to press forward and get _closer_ , but Sherlock pins him with a loaded gaze and sinks gracefully to his knees.  
  
John’s breath catches on a gasp and he falls back against the wall, barely daring to breathe as Sherlock shuffles forward and presses John’s hips into the plaster, pale fingers pulling open his flies and dipping beneath the waistband of his briefs.  
  
“You—” John gasps, unable to articulate as Sherlock’s tongue snakes out and licks a thick stripe over the very head of his cock, gathering the beaded moisture there and closing his eyes with a low hum. It’s filthy and charged and quite possibly the most erotic thing John has ever seen.  
  
“Jesus _Christ_ ,” John whispers, shaking fingers threading delicately through that mop of dark curls. John’s hands encounter resistance and his lips twitch as he feels the stiffness of mousse yielding to his touch, blunt fingers tugging away at the tightly ordered waves and leaving Sherlock’s hair a riot of unruly chaos. Sherlock blinks up at him, mouth poised and open and so very _wet_ , and John’s hips jerk towards him of their own accord. Sherlock’s lips quirk into a parody of a smirk just before he leans in and sinks his mouth right down to the base.  
  
John’s head falls back against the wall with a dull thud, his fingers tightening instinctively in Sherlock’s hair, and he can _feel_ the groan as it travels up through Sherlock’s throat and vibrates all the way down to John’s bollocks. All of John’s focus narrows sharply to tight suction and deliciously warm, slick heat, Sherlock’s tongue tracing circles across his frenulum before he pulls back to run flushed lips along the very head of John’s cock.  
  
It is debauched and dirty, and John feels heat lick up the sides of his neck, pleasure coiling tightly at the base of his spine. He gently loosens his hold in Sherlock’s hair, intending to pull back with an apology, but Sherlock grunts and his eyes open to glare pointedly at him, his mouth stretched obscenely wide around the shaft of John’s prick. John lets loose a shaking huff of bemusement and slides both of his hands to the base of Sherlock’s skull, cradling that magnificent brain between his palms and trying not to thrust as Sherlock sucks harder, cheeks hollowing and throwing his cheekbones into even sharper contrast.  
  
“Oh god,” John groans. This is better than any fantasy he’s ever had; better than _anything_. Sherlock is sucking with enthusiasm, tonguing at the thick ridge of his foreskin and scraping gently across his glans with his teeth and John becomes suddenly aware of the rhythmic, jerking motion of Sherlock’s shoulder where it presses hard into the muscle of his left thigh. John forces his eyes to focus and finds Sherlock’s gaze snared on his own, desire and heat and _hunger_ becoming more evident with each passing second.  
  
John can feel his orgasm looming closer, every flick of Sherlock’s tongue causing sparks to fly across his skin, every suck like an electric current. Sherlock moans around his cock, the vibrations chasing all along John’s body and Sherlock’s eyes slip closed again, the movement of his arm becoming more erratic.  John belatedly realizes Sherlock is wanking himself in tight jerks in time with his bobbing head, the thought nearly enough to make him come.  
  
Sherlock’s other hand grips tightly at John’s hip, slim fingers digging painfully into the skin there, grounding them both as John tilts dangerously towards orgasm. Sherlock grunts and his whole body jerks, and John is abruptly aware of Sherlock’s arm stilling, his lips pulling off the end of John’s cock with an obscenely slick noise as he drags in deep, shuddering breaths, his entire body convulsing in stiff, wracking jolts.  
  
John’s eyes widen and he watches avidly as each pulse of ejaculate shoots from between Sherlock’s sticky fingers, his entire body flushed and glowing with endorphins. Sherlock groans long and low, his eyelashes fluttering closed as he sucks in a deep, shivery breath and John can see a thick bead of pre-come drip down the side of his own cock at the sound.  
  
Christ, John can _smell_ it: pungent and earthy, and Sherlock sags against him, boneless and sated. John’s own cock twitches in sympathy and he leans heavily into the wall behind him, his own orgasm so close he feel it in his fingertips. Sherlock’s sweaty forehead is pressing into John’s thigh, and John reaches down to sweep his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, soothing and slow. John is so hard it _hurts_ , but he’s not about to ruin this for Sherlock; not now that he’s seen the aching vulnerability in his eyes, lingering and hesitant behind a thick smear of his usual bravado.  
  
“John,” Sherlock breathes, his eyes blinking open after several seconds and dilating into focus. He looks raw and open in a way John has never seen before, and something large and dangerous seems to twist painfully in his chest.  
  
But then Sherlock dives forward, relentlessly sucking down John’s cock as though he means to suffocate on it and John’s arousal ratchets up several paces at once. “Motherfucking _hell_ ,” John gasps and he can feel all of his synapses firing up in anticipation as Sherlock whines around his glans, tongue digging in under his foreskin and pulling ruthless, brutal noises from the depths of John’s chest.  
  
One long-fingered hand snakes forward and drags John’s pants down his thighs, snagging on his knees and nearly causing John to topple over as he’s knocked off balance. Sherlock’s clean hand catches him at the hip and braces him solidly against the wall at his back, and John is momentarily distracted by the feeling of slick fingers trailing along the crease of his arse. John drags his eyes open, not even aware of when he’d closed them, to gaze down at Sherlock in mild alarm.  
  
Sherlock is watching him steadily, gauging his reactions as he sucks hard, the pad of his index finger swiping firmly over the puckered skin of John’s anus. John shudders and groans, all of his nerve endings seeming to rewire themselves to the small patch of skin there and Sherlock must get the confirmation he wants because he is suddenly pushing forward, the very tip of his finger breaching John’s body with achingly slow, deliberate movements.  
  
John gasps in unconscious surrender. The initial shock of the intrusion quickly dissipates and John feels his body relax, craving more even as Sherlock slides his finger all the way home with a delicate twist. The knowledge that Sherlock is using his own come as a lubricant makes John dizzy with arousal and he can feel all the remaining blood in his body rush swiftly south, his erection pulsing impossibly thicker against Sherlock’s tongue.  
  
Sherlock moans, low and thunderous, and John can feel himself spiralling out of control, all of his muscles braced for the impact, but nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of Sherlock’s finger scraping carefully over the sensitive bump of his prostate. John jerks abruptly forward and he can feel the head of his cock nudge forcefully into the back of Sherlock’s throat. Sherlock’s muscles clamp down on him as he gags slightly and his finger twists perfectly and John is coming with more force than he’s ever felt before in his life. Blindingly bright spots flash in his vision and he can feel his entire body shattering apart as his cock erupts thick and heavy into Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock swallows reflexively and sucks again, the stimulation nearly too much, but he presses ruthlessly down on John’s prostate again and John feels another dribble of come pulse feebly from his swollen slit.  
  
John sways dangerously on his feet, aware that his fingers are twisted tightly into Sherlock’s curls, probably too hard and painful, but Sherlock doesn’t seem to mind. He’s suckling gently now at John’s over stimulated penis, tongue dragging tenderly over spent tissue and still-stiff flesh, and John is shocked to realize Sherlock is cleaning him off, still panting himself, but seemingly unwilling to let John’s cock slide from his abused lips.  
  
John feels his body give over, and he unlocks his sore knees to slide slowly down the wall, keeping his thighs spread so he doesn’t accidentally hit Sherlock in the face with his wayward joints. Sherlock leans obligingly back a little and shuffles around to settle on John’s left, back also braced against the fading wallpaper. They pant there for a few moments, and John’s brain still seems slow and halting even as the hot wave of overwhelming guilt threatens at the edges of his consciousness.  
  
“Are you—” John starts, startled at the hoarse raspiness of his voice. He clears his throat and tries again: “Are you alright?”  
  
Sherlock’s lips quirk into a small smile and he huffs out a long breath, tilting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes in apparent contentment. John is at an utter loss. On the one hand, he’s just had the most spectacular orgasm of his life with the one person in the whole world he’s been yearning for since the day they’d met. Sherlock looks gorgeous and debauched: face and neck stained with a fetching rosy flush, hair in complete disarray, delicate eyelashes fanned out across his cheeks like black smudges, lips bruised a dark, cherry red. John feels his chest tighten again at the sight and knows instinctively that this vision alone is going to make a prominent appearance in his wanking fantasies for the rest of his life.  
  
On the other hand, he just definitely and unquestionably cheated on his fiancée. Guilt and self-loathing sink harsh and hot into the pit of his stomach. He has no idea how he’s ever going to explain this monumental cock-up to Mary.  
  
“She knows,” Sherlock says quietly, and John feels the words like a harpoon to the gut.  
  
“What?”  
  
Sherlock sighs, his usual irritation at John’s slowness somewhat diminished by his utterly shattered appearance. “Mary already knows, John. She’s known all along.”  
  
John feels all the blood drain from his face, his expression tightening as the dawning horror of Sherlock’s words seeming to crest through his mind like an icy wave. “What do you mean ‘all along’?” John asks carefully, his voice deliberately calm. Panic seems to swell through his chest, all-consuming and raw, but Sherlock scoffs at him and seems to gather his strength, pulling himself forward to lean wiry arms across knobbly knees and shooting a contemptuous look over his shoulder at John.  
  
“Come now, John. Surely it’s not a stretch of the imagination to believe your fiancée saw what everyone else has been implying since the day we met.” John can’t even speak, his very words getting stuck somewhere in his esophagus.  
  
“She knows and she accepts it, John. Why don’t you?” Sherlock murmurs, and there’s a small, vulnerable tone in his voice that makes John’s heart ache.  
  
John sighs. “Sherlock, this isn’t just some experiment you can push and prod at to see what the breaking point will be. This is much more complicated than you seem to believe.”  
  
“It doesn’t have to be,” Sherlock states, all matter-of-fact and predictably practical. John can feel his temper rising again; all of the tension of the evening seeming to crash down around his shoulders once more.  
  
“ _Yes_ , it does,” he grits out through clenched teeth.  
  
“Why?” Sherlock finally turns to fully look at John, and the expression on his face is nothing more than open curiosity. John’s incredulity jumps up several notches and something seems to snap.  
  
“Because I’m in love with you!” John shouts, and immediately balks at his own words. Sherlock’s eyes widen fractionally, but then he clenches his jaw tight and moves to stand.  
  
“That’s not fair,” Sherlock growls, and John completely loses it.  
  
“Fair? You want to talk about _fair_? How about we talk about you _leaving_ me for two fucking years to go gallivanting across Europe? How about we talk about you letting me think you were _dead_ ; making me watch you commit suicide, all the while knowing what it would do to me, how it would affect me? You made me your _note_ , Sherlock. I loved you, and you _left_ me. How is any of that _fair_?”  
  
John is suddenly aware that he’s on his feet, trousers and pants still pooled absurdly around his ankles. Sherlock is rigid before him, face and shoulders set in a grim, wrathful line.  
  
“You think I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into, John? Do you really think I would have taken such actions, risked everything, if I’d had any other choice? I missed you every second of every day, and if you can’t see how living with the consequences has affected me, you’re more of an idiot than I ever thought.”  
  
John feels Sherlock’s words pierce through him, painful and destructive, and the grief that he’s been barely holding back seems to burst through him like a tide.  
  
“I can’t do this,” John mumbles, bending over to tug at his clothes.  
  
“John,” Sherlock says sharply, and there are suddenly long fingers digging into John’s forearm; Sherlock wrenching him forward until he stumbles, barely catching himself against Sherlock’s chest as his ankles tangle pitifully in the fabric at his feet.  
  
“Let me go,” he grunts, but Sherlock is stronger than he looks, and he wraps a wiry arm around John’s shoulders, holding him successfully still even as he flails. John could probably throw him off if he really wanted to, and a part of him longs to rail and scream against the constricting hold, but the rest of him is just physically and emotionally exhausted. He falls limp in Sherlock’s arms and sags, boneless, into his chest.  
  
“I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock murmurs for probably the twentieth time today. John feels the words this time like a brand, and he knows Sherlock means them, regardless of his unconventional way of showing it. He gives in a tucks his face into Sherlock’s neck, burying his nose against the sharp contrast of collar bone where it peeks out between his open shirt front. It’s deliciously warm and comforting, and John allows himself to sink into the sensation; letting Sherlock support him as his body rages out of his control.  
  
“I need to talk to Mary,” John says eventually, reluctantly pulling himself from Sherlock’s arms and shuffling away.  
  
“Why?” Sherlock asks again, and he still seems genuinely clueless. John sighs around his own frustration and tries to keep his temper in check as he finally digs his phone out of his jacket pocket.  
  
“Because I can’t just leave her, Sherlock. I love her and I intend to marry her.”  
  
Sherlock blinks his eyes slowly, but John can see the way his chest begins to rise and fall rapidly between the open fabric of his ruined shirt. John feels the guilt swelling up again, but he beats it back viciously. He’s hurt and frustrated and more confused than he’s ever been in his life.  
  
John stares blankly at his mobile for a few agonizing seconds before he comes to a painful decision and taps out four quick words: _We need to talk_  
  
The response is remarkably fast: _No we don’t._  
  
John turns away from Sherlock’s markedly blank face and presses the phone icon next to Mary’s name. It rings twice before she picks up.  
  
“John,” she says calmly, and John is suddenly struck dumb. He has absolutely no idea what to say to her. She sighs on the other end of the line, and he can hear the resignation in her very breath.  
  
“I…” he starts, unable to formulate words.  
  
“No. Don’t, John,” Mary cuts in, and John is honestly sick of hearing that word so frequently. “I won’t do this over the phone. We both know what you need right now, and it’s not a painfully awkward conversation with your fiancée.” John swallows audibly, but remains otherwise silent. Mary sighs again, and her voice sounds inexplicably tired. “Go be with Sherlock tonight, love. I’ll see you both in the morning and we can sort it out then, yeah?”  
  
John feels the hard lump of resignation curdling in his gut. “I—I didn’t know,” he says, and he can hear the damning waiver to his voice, the way his very words sound hollow and bewildered.  
  
“I know,” Mary says gently, and John can hear the strain in her voice even though it’s obvious she’s trying to hide it. “There are many things we need to discuss, but not like this, John. Not like this.” She breaks off with a small choked noise, but John can barely hear over the rushing in his ears.  
  
John just blinks into the silence, his entire world seeming to crumble around his very feet as he stands in the middle of his shattering life. “I love you,” he eventually croaks, his voice cracked and ruined.  
  
“I love you too,” she says, and he can hear the tears in her voice and hates himself for them. “I’ll see you in the morning.” And she rings off. John stares blankly at the cold square of his mobile in his palm, his whole universe seeming to shiver and shrink before his very eyes. But then there are soft fingers tugging at his hand, easing his hold around the plastic casing of his phone and pulling him into the solid warmth of a narrow chest.  
  
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” John says miserably, and he feels as though his lungs are caving in around the weight of decision.  
  
“Yes, you do,” Sherlock replies softly, long fingers rubbing soothing circles against the base of John’s skull. John looks up at him, but Sherlock’s eyes are closed in what looks suspiciously like defeat. “You’re going to marry her and settle down into a life of normality and stability. It’s no less than you deserve, John, and I cannot ask you to abandon that for me.”  
  
“You’re not asking,” John starts, because this is important, damn it.  
  
“No, but I’m taking myself out of the equation.” Something cold and empty seems to settle deep under John’s ribs, but he just clings tighter, trying to soak in the warmth of Sherlock’s proximity, to imprint it into his skin like a brand, an indelible mark that will keep a small piece of Sherlock with him always.  
  
“I won’t lose you again,” John says fiercely, and he can feel Sherlock sigh into his hair. It’s melodramatic and childish, but John cannot help the way he clings frantically to Sherlock’s shoulders; desperate to hang on to anything tangible in this entirely surreal night.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere, John,” Sherlock murmurs, soothing and calm, “I’m just eliminating a problem before it has a chance to manifest itself further. I’d have thought you’d be pleased with my forethought.” Sherlock tries a rueful smile, but it comes out more like a grimace and John hates the way his chest aches at the words. Sherlock pulls back a bit with obvious reluctance, his face set again in that inscrutable mask of indifference, but there’s an edge to it that has John immediately wary.  
  
“There’s something else,” John says slowly, suspicion only confirmed further as Sherlock averts his eyes. “What?”  
  
“It’s probably nothing,” Sherlock answers, uncharacteristically prevaricating.  
  
“What is it?” John demands, and his tone is sharper than he intends, but Sherlock finally turns his gaze towards John, and the depth of emotion in his pale irises is staggering.  
  
“I’m not entirely sure,” Sherlock mumbles, clearly uncomfortable, but John just stares at him until he shrugs. “She’s hiding something, John, but I cannot figure out what it is.”  
  
John is momentarily stymied; irrational anger and creeping doubt making him snappish and overly harsh. “What do you mean, you can’t figure it out? You’re Sherlock bloody Holmes; you _always_ figure it out.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock says, and he sounds defeated and about as exhausted as John feels. “Please, don’t ask me to do this now.”  
  
John almost pushes, but something in the way Sherlock is looking at him—all pleading eyes and wonderful, terrible exposure—makes him stop. “Let’s go to bed,” he says instead, and he feels Sherlock sag in relief.  
  
Falling into bed is the easiest thing in the world. Sherlock’s mattress is soft and comfortable, and John revels in the slide of the cool cotton sheets against his rough, heated skin. Sherlock takes his time to just stare at John, and John can feel the creeping fear of self-doubt begin to prickle at his skin, but then Sherlock smiles and slides between the sheets and John forgets everything except the warm weight of him, solid and heavy along his side. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle; slotting against each other so naturally it’s heartbreaking.  
  
John’s stripped down to just his pants, pulling the elastic band back up and over his hips, but Sherlock is naked as a newborn, and John can feel the impossible surge of arousal begin to pool dangerously in the pit of his abdomen. He’s too exhausted to move, though, and frankly too bone-weary to do more than hum in pleasure as Sherlock’s long fingers snake into his hair and begin to rub gentle circles against his scalp.  
  
“Go to sleep, John,” Sherlock murmurs against his temple. “I’ll not leave you again.”  
  
John smiles at the admission, his own heart seeming to swell with emotion. He leans forward to kiss Sherlock again, and if his movements are a little desperate, his hold a little too tight, Sherlock doesn’t mention it.  
  
They lay there among the clean, soft sheets and watch the glow of the sodium lights flicker and fade across the dusty ceiling of Sherlock’s bedroom, and John doesn’t think about how many ways his life has been changed by the man breathing evenly into his hair. He doesn’t think about the uncomfortable conversation he’s about to have with the two people he loves most in the world. He doesn’t acknowledge that his own choice is not something he’s entirely comfortable with. He doesn’t allow his mind to examine all the ways he’s already fucked this up, and all the ways he’s likely to in the future. He simply smiles and presses his lips to Sherlock’s chest, feeling the reassuring beat of his heart echo up through his ribs, and John thinks maybe, just maybe, everything will be alright.  


: :  
 _But if I’d known that you weren’t so far away  
That you were never that far away  
I could have rode this train smiling_  
: :


End file.
